The Downfall of Marcus Rashford

Dr Marcus Rashford, MBE. A young man from Withington, Greater Manchester. A graduate of Carrington academy and the main striker for one of the world’s biggest clubs, Manchester United. A club not as successful in recent years, but still a giant in European football, a club that has a certain level of expectation. Marcus Rashford being the main striker and scoring only five goals with a club languishing outside of the top four will have any striker feeling the pressure, Rashford is most certainly a special case because of his global stardom.

At 26 years old, his potential as a footballer should by now be turning into talent and performances on the pitch, but this isn’t the only thing that young (because 26 is still young in age, if not in football terms) Rashford is judged upon. A saintly aura has been created around him for his charitable action off the pitch, as well as being heralded as the second coming of Christ on it. This comes with a level of expectation that can feel quite weighty on anyone’s shoulders, let alone a simple working-class lad from a one-parent family in a working-class area of Manchester.

Rashford’s rise to United stardom was meteoric. His first team career started in the 2015/16 season, after a raft of injuries led him to be included in Manchester United’s 18-man squad for the 2^nd leg tie against Midtjylland, gaining a starting position after another injury. He scored in the game, making him the youngest European goal scorer for the club at 18 years old. This record was later broken by another troublesome talent in Mason Greenwood.

He rose through the ranks to finally make a forward position his own in 2018/2019 season. He was given the number 10 shirt after the release of the mercurial Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Within two years of scoring his first goal, the young Manchester lad was now a starting player for his boyhood club. Outside of football, Rashford, or the Marcus Rashford brand, started to create a portfolio of charitable issues. In October 2019, he was involved in the Selfridges Christmas campaign to give homeless people bags of living essentials, after which he was snapped up by Jay Z’s entertainment agency Roc Nation. If you’ve read my article the Jordan Henderson Controversy, you will be aware of my disdain for the activist image that is sold by these entertainment agencies.

Rashford’s crowning moment came when the Conservative Government voted down a Labour motion to extend free school meals during lockdown. He began to use his substantial Twitter following to share charities and businesses that were pledging to donate meals for children who normally receive free school meals. The Food Foundation took on a campaign to reverse the governments decision. This culminated in a letter from Marcus Rashford to the Prime Minister Boris Johnson that prompted a heavily publicised meeting between the footballer and the conservative politician.

Marcus Rashford was then not only a promising young professional footballer, but also a political dynamo. In October 2021 he incredibly became the youngest person ever to receive an honorary doctorate from Manchester University. Marcus was not the only footballer to receive this title, as former Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany also received the honour two years previously. Alongside this, he also received an MBE after his apparent hard work had made the government change its policy.

At the end of this Rashford, now Dr Marcus Rashford MBE, has reached lofty heights. In just a few short years, he has taken the mantle of star striker for Manchester United, defender of British children and left-wing idol (ranked 42^nd on the New Statesman’s Left Power List). With Manchester United’s fortunes being up and down, there were rumours of discontent from the young striker, but as they say in football performances mask everything, as he has one of his highest scoring seasons to date. However, this season has been another matter, with his discontent said to be affecting his performances in what has been a sub-par season.

As much as the media likes to put people on a pedestal, it also likes to knock them off just as quickly. The Guardian’s footballer of the year 2021 is now dealing with questions about his ability. Discipline ‘problems’ have become apparent and now his mentality is being called into account. This is the problem with creating this whiter-than-white persona for a sportsman. Their activism doesn’t come with a political education, maybe a bit of media training and a prompt to say the correct things, but it’s nothing but a façade. I am not saying that any of these sportsman or women are not genuine in their concerns, but to be built up in such a way is detrimental to both the person and the movement.

This season it has been heavily reported about Marcus Rashford discipline problems at the club. He was caught going to a birthday party hours after Manchester United were thumped 3-0 by their closest rivals Manchester City. Would that have been an issue if they had won? Or if Rashford wasn’t such an important player? Who knows. The next issue is clearly without argument as he spent two days in Belfast on a bender and then was unable to play the next fixture. All of these issues have been amalgamated into questions over the young Mancunians future at his boyhood club.

Marcus Rashford is still only 26. As I mentioned before, that may be prime age for a footballer, but as a person Rashford is still only a young man that is destined to make mistakes as he matures. He has been raised high for his questionable talent and outside of football turned into a paragon of virtue by the simple thinking liberal-left.

These footballers are, for the most part, working class lads. They have a level of class awareness, but as the British working-class struggles with a lack of class consciousness anyway that level of awareness will be limited with some grounding in political theory. To turn these young men into saints because of their agencies brand placement is just setting them up to fail.