Since CR7’s Manchester United exit in November, a revitalised Marcus Rashford’s form has gone stratospheric. The journey to this point hasn’t been easy, though, via penalty shootout heartbreak and a brush with Boris
Words Andy Mitten
The phone call to Manchester United came from Boris Johnson’s personal secretary, with the world paralysed by pandemic back in November 2020.
“Boris wants to talk to Marcus now.”
“He’s training.”
“Well, you’ll need to get him from training, because Boris wants to talk to him now.”
“Sorry, but he can’t, he’s training.”
The UK’s Prime Minister and one of the UK’s top forwards did eventually talk, after the Red Devils had played Everton behind closed doors. The Goodison Park scoreboard that day showed an image of Rashford along with the words: “Thank you for sticking up for our kids who needed a voice, here on Merseyside and across the country.” There’s very little that unites Manchester and Liverpool, but Rashford managed it.
Sadly, no one was fortunate enough to be a fly on the wall for the conversation between Rashford and Johnson, but it was reported that Rashford, awarded an MBE a month previously, was “overwhelmed with pride” at the progress of his campaign to fight child food poverty. In a government U-turn, ministers announced a £170 million winter grant scheme, aimed at helping low-income families struggling because of COVID.
A banner soon appeared underneath the ‘Welcome to Wythenshawe’ sign, close to where Rashford spent some of his childhood, declaring: “Rashford 1 Boris 0.” The one-time bed sheet now hangs in the National Football Museum in Manchester, alongside artwork that was commissioned by the enduringly anti-establishment Eric Cantona.
Marcus Rashford scored 21 Manchester United goals during that COVID-interrupted 2020-21 season, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side finished second in the Premier League. He’d netted 22 the season before, well up on the eight, 11, 13 and 13 goals of his first four seasons at Old Trafford. Rashford’s star was ascendant on and off the pitch, a bright light in the pandemic’s omnipotent gloom.
Pep Guardiola once told a United legend that Rashford – whose solo strike in the 1-0 March 2016 win at the Etihad Stadium made him the Manchester derby’s youngest scorer and all-but retired Martin Demichelis – was the only player from across the city he’d take to his own team. Years earlier, City sent senior officials to Rashford’s house when he was still a youth player to try to sign him, but were met with a no thanks: he was a Manchester United fan. Barcelona tried in the spring
