‘I would beg at Maccies for scraps’

AS A teenager, he begged for leftovers at the back of McDonald’s after his parents split up.

In his late teens, he faced relentless racism in Italy. And, as a youngster, he witnessed his brother slumped in the toilet with a needle in his arm. He later died of drug use.

So it says much for his resilience that Patrice Evra, now 41, made himself such a superstar at Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson.

“I started begging at 10 when my dad left home,” said Evra (above). “It was tough for my mum. She was the only one working.

“I even ended up eating by the rubbish, cold Big Macs and cheeseburgers. It lasted until I was 17 when I left to go to Italy.”

The heartbreaking tales are featured in Evra’s compelling autobiography I Love This Game.

On his brother, he wrote: “When I was a small child, I’d woken up needing to go to the toilet. The door was ajar and the light was on. I pushed it open to find my brother Albert on the toilet, staring into space.

“A needle was hanging from his arm. I didn’t understand what was happening, I closed the door and went back to bed.

“Albert eventually died from the drug addiction.”

Evra also revealed the extent of the racism he endured as a teenager.

“At 17, when playing in Italy, I was the only black player in the league,” he said. “People would throw bananas at me and make monkey noises.

“One player told me, ‘Everyone says you’re a phenomenon, but I’m going to break your legs’.

“He did a bad tackle and I had to go to the hospital.

“But this is the journey. It made me even more determined to succeed.”