From football star Marcus Rashford to Corrie queen Julie Hesmondhalgh, there were some Mancs who inspired us more than any others in 2021.
It really was a year to be proud of our home city and its people, whether they were born here or drawn here.
We wanted to honour and celebrate the individuals who make such a big impact and help to build Manchester into the best city in the world.
So we launched our Manc of the Month series back in the summer, and rounded up some seriously impressive figures.
Here are all the Mancunians we’ve celebrated in 2021.
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Marcus Rashford
Credit: BBC / Paul Cooper
What a year it’s been for Marcus Rashford – both on and off the pitch.
The Wythenshawe-born Manchester United and England star has dedicated his own time and money, tirelessly and consistently, to various causes.
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His most significant project has been his mission to #EndChildFoodPoverty, which has seen him take on MPs, partner with FareShare UK, and team up with chef Tom Kerridge for a series of affordable recipe ideas.
Towards the end of 2020, Rashford also launched his own book club, with 50,000 books donated to schools.
Julie Hesmondhalgh is a Coronation Street icon – but it’s her work away from the cobbles that really makes her such an inspiration.
Most recently, Julie was spotted volunteering at a vaccine centre in Tameside.
The actress is also a patron of charities Trans Media Watch, Maundy Relief, Marple Drama, WAST, Manchester People’s Assembly, Reuben’s Retreat, The Alex Williams Believe and Achieve Trust, and The Sophie Lancaster Foundation – seriously, a busy woman.
Her tireless work to end austerity, protect the NHS, and look after Manchester’s vital cultural scene makes her a worthy addition to our Mancs of the Year list.
The Wanted star Tom Parker received the devastating news that he had a terminal inoperable brain tumour, known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), back in October 2020.
Ever since, he’s worked to raise awareness for brain tumours, saying there are ‘massive improvements’ to be made in both treatment and research.
In an emotion post on social media earlier this year, Tom confirmed that his tumour is stable.
It’s allowed him to rejoin his bandmates for a new album – Most Wanted: Greatest Hits – and to take to the stage one more time.
Mary-Ellen is one of the most inspiring Mancs of 2021.
When s*** hit the fan back in March 2020, a lot of us locked ourselves away with Tiger King and Zoom quizzes.
But not Mary-Ellen. Faced with a restaurant full of good produce, she rallied with other business owners to get tasty, homemade meals out to the most vulnerable people in Greater Manchester.
It was a remarkable effort launched at break-neck speed, but it didn’t stop there.
Eat Well MCR is still, almost two years later, providing meals to those affected by food inequality – you can donate via their Give Support page.
Manchester just wouldn’t be Manchester without art.
Right at the forefront of our modern cultural scene is Akse-P19, an artist who creates photo-realistic murals right across the region.
They’re not just stunning works of art though – they’re symbols of hope, unity, and peace.
This inspiring Manc has created significant works including a giant portrait of Marcus Rashford, a multi-storey mural of late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis for World Mental Health Day in 2020, and a tribute to Captain Sir Tom Moore.
Bev Craig has recently taken up the mantel as leader of Manchester City Council after Sir Richard Leese stepped down after more than 25 years in the role.
She is both the first woman and the first openly-gay councillor to lead our local council, something she says is the ‘honour of her life’.
She’s dedicated to creating a fairer, cleaner, safer, greener and more supportive city.
Liam Broady is on the comeback – here’s why you need to watch out for him at Wimbledon
The Manc
Local tennis player Liam Broady is quietly rising back up the ranks on the ITF Tour, and here’s why we think you should watch out for him come Wimbledon 2026 this summer.
He is physical proof that the ATP Tour ranking means so much to a player’s career.
The Stockport-born tennis player has suffered many injury setbacks since turning pro in 2014. With a host of ankle and back injuries plaguing his playing career, he has had to turn to the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Tour to climb the rankings once again.
He is currently placed at 283* on the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) Tour after reaching two semi-finals in the space of a month.
With wins on two of Portugal’s hard courts in Faro and Santo António, the 32-year-old has climbed from rank 303 at the start of the year to under the threshold in less than three months.
His hard work on outdoor courts is paying off as his seeding is slowly improving, and his opponents are becoming less of a challenge.
For the unititated, the ATP ranking is decided by a points system that determines your playing level, and therefore who you can possibly draw, with lower seeds getting tougher games as they need more points, and vice versa.
These point tallies factor into every win, loss, serve, and shot as it propels you up or down the table.
With an injury over Christmas, the Stopfordian Team GB player came back stronger for the start of the annual tournament calendar and now looks to be in fighting form on the ITF Tour.
He’s definitely had to tackle some obstacles over the years, both on and off the court…
Competing solely on outdoor hard courts to gain his fitness levels back is necessary, but the grass courts – his speciality – will come around with time and consistent form, with Wimbledon being his home tournament and his highlight of the competitive calendar.
His career best ranking was 93, after becoming the first British wildcard entry to beat an ATP top five player in 2023 when defeating Casper Rudd on Wimbledon’s centre court.
His win against the Norwegian in round two sent him into the top 100 rankings for the first time, and into the shining spotlight alongside British tennis stars.
The adverse effects of time away from the tour are clear to see with Broady’s peaks and dips in the table below; this means taking a hit to player motivation, game-to-game momentum and teamworking within doubles pairs.
Liam Broady’s career rankings progression chart. (Credit: ATP Tour)
It is a likely situation for players to neglect their doubles career without the added stress of injury, so if they are to arise, it does not just impact individual physicality levels but also communication between doubles pairs.
A fellow British player with similar injury problems is Emma Raducanu, who rose to fame with a shocking US Open grand slam win as a qualifier. Since her win, she has had multiple surgeries, which saw her plummet down WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) standings due to time spent off court.
The issues that come with injury upsets can make a career really difficult to reclaim, even at a young age; tour rankings can be brutal on game time and match opponents, such as Broady’s Wimbledon draw against Holland’s Van De Zandschulp and Raducanu’s recent draw against American no.3 Anisimova.
We hope to see Team GB’s athletes fit and ready to fight on tour, and we have a strong feeling we’ll see native talent Broady back in the spotlight where he belongs.
Gig review | KEO at the O2 Ritz in Manchester – Sometimes you just KNOW…
Danny Jones
Fontaines D.C., Turnstile, Wunderhorse, Sleep Token, Neck Deep; sometimes it only takes a few listens and a live show to KNOW that a band is going to catch fire and go on to be huge – for Audio North and KEO, it only took a few.
But having now seen KEO for a third time, collectively, we’re more convinced than ever that they’re going to be massive.
Sadly, a prior engagement meant that we just missed catching the support act, Tooth (though we did hear great things rumbling around the eager young crowd), but there was no chance we were going to miss this lot show off how very good they are at what they do.
And there was absolutely no chance they were going to disappoint us, either…
We first caught this fast-rising post-grunge outfit live in action at Kendal Calling last year, where they somehow turned a daytime slot on the Woodlands stage into a moody mid-evening mosh.
They had even less fully produced and officially released music out then, but then we had the pleasure of watching them at The Key Club in Leeds this past October, and they were even better; punchier, more graduated at their game, and their fandom seemed plenty strong already.
As it turns out, that same progression proved true in Manchester, as KEO played their biggest headline show to date, and that same cult following only appeared more fervent than ever.
They might be based down in the capital, with roots in Portugal, brothers Finn and Conor having grown up there, but they certainly know a thing or two about how to please a Northern audience.
Of course, we’re sure they go off just as hard down in the capital – in fact, we’re certain they do – but the response they got from two sold-out rooms full of Yorkshire folk and us equally discerning Mancs felt like they had well and truly passed the litmus.
With flying colours, may we add.
Everything from the raw ’90s rock feel to the aesthetic hits just right. (Credit: Audio North)
It’s also worth noting that these London lads have built up this hype like very few ever manage to do: by developing a sterling live reputation right from the off and putting top-notch shows first.
For those unaware, they only just released their first five-track EP, Siren, back in June 2025, yet they’ve been packing out venues and festival stages pretty much since day dot, with die-hards growing their love for the band via performance and initially only learning the lyrics through social clips and snippets online.
While some have questioned why they’ve been chosen to headline this year’s Neighbourhood Festival here in Manchester city centre before they’ve even dropped a debut album, you only need to hear the entire Ritz screaming back the lyrics to ‘I Lied, Amber’, ‘Thorn’ and ‘Hands’ to know they fit the bill.
Frontman Finn pours so much unbridled power and emotion into his vocals, guitarist Jimmy Lanwern didn’t even need to look to know that his riffs were ripping the roof off, and they’ve quickly moved far beyond the early Wunderhorse parallels – they’re their own beast just waiting to be fully woken.
Daisy Jackson -
31st December 2021 
