How life has changed for Dale teenager since THAT United goal

24 Jan 2020 10:16
Published by: Daniel Almond

 

To say it has been an eventful four months for Luke Matheson would be an understatement.

If you recognise the name, it's probably because he was the 16-year-old Rochdale defender who scored a brilliant equaliser to take Manchester United to penalties in his side's Carabao Cup defeat in September.

Matheson's League One club took on another Premier League side when they visited Newcastle United in an FA Cup third round replay.

The now-17-year-old set up the equaliser for Aaron Wilbraham at Spotland on 4 January to earn the replay for Brian Barry-Murphy's side.

We spoke to the teenager to find out just how much life has changed - personally and professionally - since that memorable night at Old Trafford.

After getting a flurry of A*s and As in his GCSEs, Matheson started studying for his A-Levels in September. And it was back to reality the morning after his heroics against United, as he sat a psychology test at Trinity Sixth Form in Manchester.

“It wasn't my best piece of work and my teacher was understanding of that. She let me redo it when I'd had more sleep!

“My education is something that I'm so passionate about. Hopefully I have a long playing career, but education is something you can fall back on, regardless of who you are and what you've done.

“If I work really hard in football and my education for the next two years it'll be more than worth it. I go to college whenever I have a day off here, I stay a couple of hours after everyone else sitting with the teachers, I do a couple of hours after training, or a couple of hours after a game.

“It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it.

To my friends they still see me as Luke, but to the year sevens (11- and 12-year-olds) I'm some sort of superstar.

“That's so weird to me because I was in their shoes, wearing that exact same uniform, taught by the same teachers, sitting in the same classrooms, writing with the same pens and pencils and now they're coming up to me with their planners for their homework asking me to sign stuff and I'm getting told off by my old head of year because I'm not allowed to.

“I still get recognised on the tram on the way to Rochdale for training. I have been recognised at the Trafford Centre.

“I'm just a kid, I'm 17, I've done nothing in the football world so for people to come up to me and want to take a photo, it's so weird.”

 

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