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‘I feel like a proud mother’
I had planned to write something completely different today but at 2:39am I decided to push that idea to the side and talk about some athletes that continue to inspire by leading from the front, which is fitting considering it is Black History Month.
A few days ago ESPN UK revealed that from August 6th to September 15th the two most trolled Premier League players were Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling. Marcus Rashford had received about 28.5% of the negative tweets recorded and Raheem Sterling had received 24.7%. About a day later, Marcus Rashford received the news that he had become an MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours list.
Even though they receive the most negative tweets online I could argue that Rashford and Sterling are the two British footballers that we should be incredibly proud of. Marcus Rashford publicly pressed for Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the UK Government to allow about 1.3 million children in the UK to claim free school meal vouchers during the coronavirus pandemic. This was met with widespread praise and adoration from most, especially my mother who not only commented on his facebook post but she said she felt like a proud mother. In fact she thinks he deserves more than an MBE. However, Rashford like any other black athlete daring to fight for what he believes in did have the odd critic, like a certain right wing blogger who asked if Rashford knew his father.
Then there is Raheem Sterling, who has been as outspoken on racism in the UK as any footballer in the world. In 2017, Sterling was attacked outside Manchester City’s training ground by a man who used racist language towards him. About a year later, Sterling also called out the media for fuelling racism against young black footballers after he suffered racist abuse during a defeat at Chelsea. The amazing part of this story is how young Sterling and Rashford are. Sterling is 25 and Rashford is 22, we could argue that they are not even in their prime years as footballers and yet for two of the most talented footballers England has ever produced, it is incredible to think that their greatest impacts could be off the pitch.
What is so great about this generation of footballers but athletes in general is that not only do they stand up for what they believe in, but they talk about key issues something that athletes of the…
