Manchester United under-21s will dedicate a pre-season game to former academy product Joe Thompson.
Thompson’s career
He spent seven years in United’s academy from 1998-2005 before he moved to Rochdale.
In his first spell at the club he played 157 games in League Two, scoring 17 goals.
He would later move to clubs such as Tranmere Rovers, Bury and Carlisle United, before returning once again to Rochdale in 2016 before retiring in 2019.
Battle with illness
During his time at Tranmere he “received his diagnosis of a rare form of cancer called nodular sclerosis Hodgkin lymphoma.”
After treatment he incredibly returned to football but was diagnosed for a second time with the same disease just three years later.
Thompson remarkably recovered again and after retirement started a career in motivational speaking. Sadly, he lost his third battle with the illness earlier this year.
United to pay respect
The Red Devil youth team are scheduled to play in an upcoming friendly against Thompson’s former side Rochdale on Saturday 2nd August.
The club’s official website reports that the match will be “dedicated to the former player as “both clubs are coming together in a Game for Joe.”
The site explains that “a minute’s applause will be held beforehand and members of Joe’s family are due to be in attendance at the Crown Oil Arena and are selecting some of his favourite songs to play in the build-up to the kick-off.”
What’s more, all future games played between the two teams will have a special trophy at stake. The first one will be in the National League Cup match, which is provisionally due to be staged on 21st October.”
Award
It has already been announced that United have created the “Joe Thompson award, which will be presented each year within the Academy to somebody who best embodies the values he displayed.”
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
