Marcus Rashford explains how Man Utd helped his mum by signing him one year early

Rashford is one of five children in his immediate family and has been working hard to help those in a similar situation to the one he grew up in as a youngster

Marcus Rashford has explained how Man Utd helped his mother out by allowing him onto their youth programme a year early.

The striker joined up with the United academy at 11-years-old, despite the programme being for players aged 12 and above.

Rashford was one of five children in his immediate family, and he opened up on the tough circumstances that pushed his mother, Melanie, to request he be taken on before his 12th birthday.

Speaking to the BBC, Rashford said: “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.

“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.”

Rashford described how Melanie would do her full weekly shop in Pound World, where each item was less than a pound, and would ration food supplies to last over seven days.

He added: “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.

An Open Letter to all MPs in Parliament…#maketheUturn

Please retweet and tag your local MPs pic.twitter.com/GXuUxFJdcv

— Marcus Rashford (@MarcusRashford) June 14, 2020

“So there is always a big element of sacrifice to get to the top level and that’s the one we had to make.”