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Tom Cleverley casts his eyes briefly downwards, and lowers his voice. “It felt too good to be true. It actually was.”

He is speaking about the start of his Manchester United career, and a remarkable rise to the top.

“It was a whirlwind,” he says with a wistful smile.

“Turning the Charity Shield against City around, beat Arsenal 8-2, Tottenham 3-0. It was too good to be true... I got a bad injury in the next game.”

If you look at Cleverley’s career, it is hard to get your head around the fact he’s only 26.

Plucked from Bradford’s youth set-up by the mighty United, he was always tiny and always fighting to prove his worth.

Three seasons were spent out on loan as everyone assumed he’d be another youth starlet to drift away, winning a league title with Leicester then a year apiece at Watford and Wigan, before that spectacular belated arrival at Old Trafford.

(Image: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Since then, the whirlwind has swirled continuously and ferociously.

In that first season he fought back from crippling injury to help mount a title challenge, only to be thwarted by City in arguably the most dramatic season’s finale ever.

From there, the pace somehow accelerated.

England called, for a debut against Italy; World Cup qualification followed, and Sir Alex Ferguson – in his final season - anointed him as Paul Scholes’ successor in a remarkable campaign that saw United crowned champions before the end of April.

“When you are young, you do think you are unstoppable. You are young, enthusiastic and you don’t think the other side of it. The low side,” Cleverley says with emphasis to stress the inevitable.

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And how.

When David Moyes took over he initially remained a pivotal figure in the side, and with England experienced the joy of defeating Scotland, but soon the murmurs of discontent began to flow, eventually into a torrent, and for a while, it seemed as though this mild-mannered, intelligent and decent young man was the most hated footballer in the country.

It seems as unfair as it is incongruous, but Cleverley has never been that pampered footballer with no grounding, and his roots in Bradford always allowed him to put it into context.

“I don’t want to dwell on what happened but it makes you a stronger character. It wasn’t easy, but and in the long run it makes you a better player,” he says with a shrug.

“I have experienced the highs and lows of football.

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"I am only 26 but I feel a lot more experienced than maybe I should be. These things all happen in football... maybe it is a bit more extreme in my career than anyone else’s but I think it has made me a better person.

“It was a bit of a downward spiral. In that United team I was never going to be the superstar, and the position I was playing I was never going to get a couple of goals that would have turned it around.

“But I go back to my roots... my mum and dad. I wouldn’t say I ever had that superstar tag despite being at United so young, and that made me work harder at different aspects of my game. It worked out in the end.”

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Those roots he speaks of are evident when he is keen in our interview to talk less about himself, and more about a cause in Bradford he is supporting, where a young mum suffered a stroke so severe, the doctors were “ready to turn the machines off.

(Image: Richard Heathcote - The FA)

“She is in a brain unit, and we are trying to get her back home to her house – communities in Bradford have been fantastic – but we want to turn her house into a home really and give her a sensory room and as many things as we can so that her brain can develop. The goal is that she can have contact with her kids whether that is just blinking one day.”

It is this grounded nature that sets Cleverley apart, and inspired his Everton manager Roberto Martinez to suggest there is “no better English player with the ability and the tough lessons that he’s been through”.

It also led to a recall into the 40-man England squad that will meet up at St George’s Park next week, amid suggestions he is back to the levels of his early United years.

(Image: John Peters/Getty Images)

For Cleverley though, who spent last season at Aston Villa after being loaned out by Louis van Gaal, that grounded realism is ready to kick in.

He brushes over the more extreme of Martinez’s comments, but does say: “He is right when he says there is more to come from me, and it would be the pinnacle to be involved in a major tournament with England.

“But at the minute my head is firmly with Everton. All this has made me thicker skinned - I believe I can win more silverware and if I do that will make it a little sweeter.”

* Tom Cleverley was rewarding Sebastian Dunn, who secured the work experience of a lifetime at Everton FC thanks to LifeSkills,created with Barclays.

For more information visit www.barclayslifeskills.com.

Like Tom, you can support Donna Ormondroyd at www.justgiving.com/getdonnahome