A mural of Marcus Rashford in Withington, Manchester was defaced following England's Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy; within hours messages of love, solidarity and support flooded in for Rashford; Manchester City Council will preserve the messages in the city's library archives
Friday 23 July 2021 14:58, UK
Work is under way in Manchester to preserve thousands of messages posted on a mural in support of the Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford.
The mural depicting the striker was vandalised in the wake of England's Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy, spawning a public outcry and outpouring of solidarity at the site in Withington.
Within hours of the defacement local residents and well-wishers had covered it with messages, and the mural then underwent repairs.
Amanda Wallace of Manchester Art Gallery told Sky Sports News: "It is really important to keep it.
"Since we have been on site, since the messages appeared, every person we have spoken to, the one question they have had is 'what is going to happen to it, is it going to be kept'.
"Everybody wants to keep it, these are really heartfelt messages against what happened and in support of Marcus.
"It is a really important part of our history, it has really significant local, community value but also much more value nationally."
Manchester City Council has begun the process of removing the messages for freezing and drying and will then transport them to the library archives.
Once there each individual message, some of which were damaged by heavy rain, will be recorded and photographed for posterity purposes.
Rashford was also one of three England players, alongside Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who were racially abused after missing penalties at Wembley earlier this month.
