When Marcus Rashford won the Sir Matt Busby Award for Manchester United’s Player of the Season at a club gala evening earlier this week, he made sure his acceptance speech was phrased in a way.
“I feel a huge sense of pride,” said Rashford, who has scored 30 goals in all competitions ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup final. “I just hope more youth players go through and win this award and feel what I feel on the podium now.”
Rashford is the first player to come through United’s respected youth system to win the award since Ryan Giggs 25 years ago and as United took on the titanic battle with Manchester City at Wembley, his nod to the club’s heritage felt particularly relevant.
This FA Cup final, more than any other in recent memory, is loaded with significance because it is the first to see the two Manchester clubs face each other and because it represents a chance for City to make a big leap to become only the second English side, after United, to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble.
It also represents United’s last chance to prevent City from emulating the 1998–99 achievement. If United win, it will give their fans the consolation that Erik ten Hag and his side, right at the end of a season in which City have won everything for them, have ruined their rivals’ attempt to enter the history books with them.
Marcus Rashford won the Sir Matt Busby Award for Man United’s Player of the Season this week
The Red Devils striker (above) made sure to frame his acceptance speech in a certain way
He said he hopes more youth players can win the award as United approach their 4,208th consecutive game with a star from the youth team in Saturday’s FA Cup final against Man City.
There is a seemingly apocryphal story that the surviving members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins team that compiled the only perfect season in NFL history meet each year to toast after each season’s final undefeated record falls and it isn’t hard to imagine Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Dwight Yorke and the rest doing the same as City falter on Saturday.
But Saturday’s game will also be a battle for the soul of Manchester football and, as Rashford’s words suggested, United’s rich history of signing players who have grown up through the youth system and are part of the structure of the club, often emboldened their supporters to claim that they are the Manchester team.
The progression of players from the youth team – especially local players – to the first team is a particularly emotional topic in football.
It carries a strong sense of pride and promotes the idea that there is a bloodline between a club and its community.
For many it means more when local boys are involved. It suggests authenticity. It strengthens a club’s sense of identity.
It contributes to the sense of belonging and community of the supporters. That’s why Spurs fans love to sing that Harry Kane is “one of our own.”
In Manchester, one of City’s coping mechanisms when United under the management of Sir Alex Ferguson swept everything for them was to insist that City were still Manchester’s team, because United’s support came from all over the country.
City fans might suggest that United supporters were somehow fake, and that was a comfort in the days before Abu Dhabi bought the club and City became England’s best team.
‘**** off back to London’, City fans sing to United supporters when the two meet.
It was the same idea of identity – that United were some sort of disembodied entity – that City focused on when Carlos Tevez moved from United to Etihad in 2009.
City famously greeted his arrival with hoardings displaying his picture and the slogan ‘Welcome to Manchester’.
But even though there’s a lot for City to be proud of in the work they’ve done in their academy over the last decade, even though many believe City’s academy has surpassed United’s some time ago.
There is an umbilical cord that binds United to their local community through their youth team that no other club in England can match.
United’s ‘Trinity Statue’ outside their Old Trafford stadium showcases club legends who started out as youth team products, including midfielder Sir Bobby Charlton and winger George Best
The Red Devils have a rich history of promoting young players, especially the ‘Class of ‘1992’
It’s a remarkable statistic, but as part of a record stretching back to October 1937, Saturday’s FA Cup Final will be United’s 4,208th consecutive first team game to feature a graduate from the club’s youth system in the squad of the first team.
The commitment to youth began in the early 1930s when club secretary Walter Crickmer and chief scout Louis Rocca founded the Manchester United Junior Athletic Club to identify young talent early and save money on transfer fees.
Both Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson, the club’s leading managers, were so staunch supporters of a youth policy that Busby’s Babes and Ferguson’s Class of ’92 forged the club’s identity in its most successful periods.
Three of the greatest players in English club play – George Best, Bobby Charlton and Duncan Edwards – came through United’s system and it also spawned a French World Cup winner in Paul Pogba.
Even in lean times, it has spawned cult heroes like Norman Whiteside. More recently, Rashford, a United legend in the making and a hero to many for his dedication to the cause of food poverty, has been the outstanding product of the youth system.
It is another notable statistic that between signing Tommy Taylor in March 1953 and bringing in Harry Gregg in December 1957, Busby did not pay a single player transfer fee.
The core of Ferguson’s great teams – Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt and the Neville brothers – were products of the youth system at the club’s then base at The Cliff, and were also free.
“They made you understand the prestige of representing United at any level,” Gary Neville wrote of Eric Harrison and Stiles’ youth team lessons. “History was all around you.
United now face bitter rivals City at Wembley Stadium at the weekend with a trophy on the line
Manager Erik ten Hag hopes to build on the League Cup silver prize he won this year
“We went to the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland once and stayed in a hotel run by Harry Gregg, United’s great goalkeeper and hero of the Munich plane crash. We sat there like 16-year-olds listening to Harry and Nobby talk about George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton.’
There have been times when some have wondered if the run with youth team players in the side might be broken – most recently when Jose Mourinho was in charge – but Mourinho also respected the club’s traditions and gave six youth team players, including Scott McTominay, their debut in the first team while at Old Trafford.
The tradition has endured even as concerns arose that the United academy was suffering from a lack of investment and as the crop of the region’s young players – including the sons of former United stars – joined the academy. chose from City.
City also have excellent local talent in and around their first team, most notably Phil Foden, Rico Lewis and Cole Palmer and although United were knocked out in the fourth round of the FA Youth Cup this season – beaten by Stoke City – City have made it to the semi-finals.
But there is no club in the country that can match United for the longevity and consistency of their commitment to youth. On Saturday, when Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho and others run onto the pitch for the Cup Final or take a seat on the bench, United will have achieved a different kind of victory before a ball has been kicked.