It’s been revealed that Marcus Rashford used to hand out cash to children and the homeless in Manchester from his car.
The Wythenshawe-born Manchester United and England star is no stranger to lending a hand to those who need it most after his mission to end child food poverty has helped thousands of children throughout the UK over the last year, and won him widespread praise in the process.
His relentless campaigning has also helped earn him a number of prestigious accolades, including an MBE, and special honours at both last year’s BBC Sports Personality Awards and Pride of Britain Awards.
But while Rashford has been quite-rightly recognised by the public for his numerous achievements throughout the last 12 months, according to his brother, Dwaine Maynard, a lot of his work has gone on unnoticed too.
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In an exclusive interview with the WSJ Magazine this week, Rashford admitted that before he began to turn his hunger to make a difference into impactful change on a national level, he used to drive around the streets of Manchester handing out cash to those in need.
He would often hand over money from his car window to children and the region’s homeless.
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It was only until his brother Dwaine advised him to look for other ways to make a change, that he decided to stop doing it.
“It’s actually not very safe for you to stop your car and do that,” Dwaine said.
Even though he’s now moved on to create a lasting legacy of chance, Rashford acknowledges that despite all his efforts, there still remains a lot of work to do in the continued fight against child food poverty, and when speaking in a video hearing with the Commons Petitions Committee earlier in the year, he said: “The main point is children and families need assurances that when they fall, they are going to have someone to lean on, they’re going to be protected.
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“[Ministers] should have had things in place to assure people they’re not going to hit rock bottom and have no help, because too many people that I’ve spoken to and the families and their children, they hit that point and they’ve had to build themselves back up on their own.
“And for me, that’s not fair.”
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The player celebrations from Stockport County’s League Two trophy presentation are glorious
Danny Jones
If you’re a Stockport County fan, you’ve had a very good year as the Hatters have just been crowned League Two champions and will be back in the English third tier next season – safe to say they’ve been making most of the trophy celebrations.
Players and staff very much included.
Edgeley was filled with flares and even people climbing on rooftops when they officially secured promotion back to League One for the first time in 12 years – the second time they’ve managed to go up in three seasons – and there was a great attendance in Stockport town centre for the bus parade.
But it was last week’s trophy presentation back at the stadium that produced some of the most memorable scenes, with County topping off a season of impressive and often high-scoring performances on the pitch with plenty more pageantry. Cue the music.
We still haven’t stopped laughing at Kyle Knoyle.
From bringing Isaac Olaofe’s ‘Tanto’s on fire!’ chant to life to hammering home puns on names like Fraser Horsfall, no matter how obvious, these are the kind of deeply unserious celebrations we expect from a trophy presentation.
County fan or not, you’ve got to admit it looks like a good party.
It’s moments like these that players, fans and staff work hard all season for; to prat around like muppets in front of their adoring supporters. They even got assistant coach, Clint Hill, in the mix and, as it turns out, he proved to be one of the biggest ring-leaders.
We sincerely hope the Hatters keep trickling out more of these party scenes as we know there’s plenty more that fans would love to watch back.
We’re still yet to see captain Paddy Madden, who won Player of the Month for April, and the gaffer himself, Dave Challinor, who has comfortably secured his legacy as one of the club’s all-time greats.
Challinor and the club have made no secret of seriously eyeing up the Championship and who knows what else at County’s momentum continues to build, especially with a huge stadium redevelopment kicking off soon.
What do you reckon, Hatters – do you reckon a third promotion could be on the cards?
Liam Gallagher says he’ll ‘gig in Lidl’ if Co-op Live still isn’t ready – and they sound pretty game for it
Danny Jones
Following the ongoing palaver with Co-op Live, Liam Gallagher has joked that he’d happily play his scheduled gigs in a Lidl if the arena still isn’t ready – at least we think he’s joking…
With Liam Gallagher having been named as one of the first acts booked to play Co-op Live last year, many are now wondering whether the venue will even by June, with the former Oasis frontman set to play four Definitely Maybe 30th-anniversary sets. That being said, he’s come up with a solution if not.
Vintage LG, we’ll give him that.
Obviously a bit of a tongue-in-cheek quip at the venue being sponsored by a supermarket and convenience store chain, it could have been any other competitor that the ever-witty youngest Gallagher brother picked but it somehow made it extra funny that he chose a budget brand like Lidl.
However, with the 51-year-old already having fun with stunts like voicing the tannoys on the Metrolink last year, for instance, we wouldn’t put it past him to take this joke a little further.
Better still, not that we’re getting carried away or anything but Lidl themselves seem pretty keen on the idea too; they even spent the time to build an entire setlist for the fictional show. Fair play.
Can you imagine? Liam Gallagher swapping the occasional tambourine shake for beeps from a barcode scanner as he moves back and forth on the conveyor belt. We know it’s absolute nonsense and we definitely shouldn’t be even remotely considering it… BUT it’s the stuff of dreams and strange things have happened.
A lot of stranger things have happened this week alone. As for the latest with Co-op Live, the Chairman and CEO of key-backers Oak View Group, Tim Leiweke, issued a full statement sharing his “sincere apologies”and insisting that they understand “there is work to be done to rebuild your trust in us.”
With the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Peter Kay, The Black Keys and more having their gigs pulled by the venue due to numerous issues, including an air conditioning unit falling from the ceiling, fans are understandably fearful that other upcoming events could face delays or general misfortune.
Much like the venue itself, we imagine we’ll be playing catch-up on this whole saga for the foreseeable, but here’s a recap of the story so far: