Manchester United star, Marcus Rashford has recounted how the club allowed him to join the academy at a younger after his mum explained her poverty stricken situation to club administrators.
In a touching letter posted by Rashford on his Twitter, and directed at UK MP’s, Rashford urged UK politicians not to stop a food voucher scheme next month – which was set up to guarantee meals to children when schools were shut down in March- as he had issues with eating well while growing up due to his mother’s financial situation.
Rashford, Manchester United’s highest goalscorer this season, has helped charity FareShare reach a goal of supplying three million meals to vulnerable children in the United Kingdom .
He said Manchester United allowed him to join their academy programmes one year younger than he should after his mother let them know of tough circumstances with feeding and accomodation at home.
In his letter, Rashford said MPs should “make protecting the lives of some of our most vulnerable a top priority” and “this is not about politics, this is about humanity.” then revealed more details bout his childhood during a BBC interview on Monday.
He revealed his mother, Melanie, had spoken to the Red Devils about their home situation and United allowed him to join up at age 11 rather than 12.
“My mum was a single parent, she had five kids all living in the same house. The programme that I started at 11 years old, you’re supposed to start it at 12 years old,” he said.
“It basically gives you accommodation closer to the training facilities and a new school and she worked that hard to push it forward because she knew that was a step I needed to take.
“I needed to be eating the right food as I was growing, I needed to be close to my team-mates, my new school and my new school friends. She made that decision when I was 11 years old and United allowed it.
“That was the reason I ended up going at a younger age to the others, it was to help my mum with her situation and also get me out of the situation we were in. So there is always a big element of sacrifice to get to the top level and that’s the one we had to make.”
“My mum, she did the best she could, we used to go to a shop called Pound World and everything was under a pound,” he added. “We would schedule out the week, we would get seven yoghurts and you could have one yoghurt a day and so on. She did the best she could within the circumstances.
“There are some families out there, like mine, that have four or five kids and it is literally impossible for her to take control of the situation.
“This is all going on at a time when kids should be concentrating on school work and stuff like that. It is crazy to think this is still going on in 2020 and it’s something I don’t believe should be happening.”
