For me, there were reasons to go through town on a day-to-day basis. Whether it was helping my Mum with the shopping or just wandering around with my brothers, family members or friends, there were always different reasons and it was always exciting. Town is a special place.



Football and music are big things in Manchester. For a lot of my friends, music was always absolutely massive. For me, when I was growing up, personally it was all about sports, and obviously football in particular.

I was just mad about sports, couldn’t get enough of it, so I didn’t really get into music until later on, when I was a bit older.



Eventually I started going to gigs, and one that I most remember going to was seeing Drake at the Manchester Arena. That was great fun. Drake’s been one of my favourite artists since I started getting into music, so it was really exciting to go and watch him. I liked his music, so I went to see him in concert. Nothing out of the ordinary there.



It’s unbelievable to think that so many people lost their lives or suffered terrible injuries doing the exact same thing last year. What happened in Manchester on 22 May 2017 was unimaginable.

One year on, gone but not forgotten. My thoughts are with everyone who’s lives were lost or forever changed. Don’t let hate win. One love manchester ❤ 🐝 pic.twitter.com/jetqK2gsWZ — Marcus Rashford (@MarcusRashford) May 22, 2018

I won’t forget the moment I found out about the bombing at the Arena. In that moment, I won’t lie, it’s so tough to process. The likelihood of you knowing someone who was directly involved in it is quite high, so it’s a difficult moment.



Personally, there was a massive, massive impact on me and I could see it affected the rest of the team as well. We were preparing for the Europa League final two days later, but even though we went to Stockholm, Manchester was at the front of our minds.



We all spoke about it beforehand in the dressing room before we went out for the final, and when the game had finished and we’d won, the first thing we did was make sure we showed our respects for what had happened back home.