I started 15m behind in a 100m race
ROOTS OF RASHFORD CAMPAIGN
CHILD poverty crusader Marcus Rashford capped a perfect day by hitting Leeds for six – and then landing a special Sports Personality of the Year award.
England striker Rashford, who grew up on the breadline in Wythenshawe, embarrassed the Government into a U-turn to ensure kids didn’t go hungry during the pandemic.
And after helping Manchester United move up to third in the Premier League with a demolition of trans-Pennine rivals Leeds, Rashford admitted he never expected his feedthe-kids campaign to take off.
He admitted: “As a kid growing up, I felt like I started a 100-metre race 15m behind everybody else.
“It was more difficult for me to do basic things, like getting to training and eating the right things.
“But once I got to where I wanted to be, I had this thing eating away inside me saying: ‘Make sure you make a difference for the next generation.’
“Everything I get from doing what I do will always sit in my mum’s house. In very difficult circumstances, she brought me up to be a person with morals and it’s important to me that she can see my awards every day.”
Rashford was surprised when his crusade caught a wave – and caught the Tory government off-guard.
He said: “I didn’t expect it. It was something I tried a few years ago in Manchester, helping a lot of kids around the city, but I wasn’t satsified with the reach it was having.
“A few years later I was speaking to my brothers and my mum and we decided to have another go at it.”
Rashford forced the Government into U-turns to keep providing £15 food vouchers to England’s poorest families over the summer.
Rashford’s sense of life on the breadline was based on his own childhood in food poverty, acknowledging th there were times when his mother “struggled to put bread on the table.”
Rashford wasn’t eligible for the main SPOTY award because judges insist the main criterion should be sporting achievement – although he has scored 19 goals for club and country in 2020.
But the SPOTY Panel Special Award was recognition for his impact beyond the pitch.