Mbeumo welcomes former school to Carrington

Manchester United's top scorer has kept in close contact with his former school Jeanne d'Arc La Salle in Avallon and met with pupils and staff at Carrington last Sunday.

The day after scoring the opener for the Reds in the 2-0 victory against Tottenham Hotspur, the Cameroon international took time out from his recovery at the training ground to chat the group, who had travelled up from London early in the morning, as part of an excursion to England.

The relationship has been going strong for some time, with the African attacker returning to his old haunt, during his time at Brentford.

PE teacher Patrick Boquel, now retired, was clearly a major influence on the young Mbeumo and Annabella Ware, the professeur d'anglais at the school, has worked hard to ensure the connection remains, providing inspiration to all the youngsters.

"Patrick and I got chatting when I moved to the school and, obviously, I'm British and originally from London," Annabella told us. "He kept telling me about this lad who had just started playing for Brentford, at the time. He said, you do know I taught him ever since he was 11 years old?

"I got really interested and he kept talking about Bryan, how well he was doing, and would tell me all these lovely anecdotes about when he first met Bryan and how he could spot his star qualities and his potential as an athlete.

"I know Patrick did have an impact on Bryan," she explained. "In fact, one of the anecdotes he told me was about when he first knew that Bryan was special. Every year, our school has a cross-country run and it raises money for charity. The year Bryan did it, he won by an absolute mile. I mean he was just waiting for everyone else to turn up, at the end, and that was one thing.

"Okay, so he's already winning it but this is an 11-year-old kid and, when Patrick said: 'Well done, Bryan, you did so well', he basically gave him a step-by-step analysis of how he ran the race. Even the sort of things he was thinking on each step of the run. Patrick thought is this your level of philosophy and awareness of how you need to do something in order to win it?

"At that point, he knew he had someone special already, with the speed and the agility, but now also the psychology. That was a lovely, lovely story."

"Patrick set up advanced football classes and I think it was his idea to get Bryan involved," she said. "So, when Patrick retired, I thought, with me being English and following the Premier League, that we need to keep this relationship going because, if somebody doesn't do it, it's just going to die.

"So Patrick gave me Bryan's number and I invited him to come to the school at the end of the season. He contacted me to say well, I'm coming up to visit my mum so I'll pop in. So, a couple of years ago, he did a really nice visit and we did it as a surprise for the pupils. He suddenly turned up and it was just fantastic, he did a Q&A and they had a kickaround with him the playground, before he signed our goalposts.

"I printed off a ton of photographs of him and he signed every single one of them and was really lovely."

"So it was just natural for me that I should keep the relationship going."

The stay in England obviously took a lot of planning but it included the Old Trafford tour, ahead of making the short drive to Carrington. With it falling close to the anniversary of the Munich Air Disaster, it provided a sharper focus for the schoolchildren, who were attentive to being educated about something that happened 68 years ago.

"So we came up with our group of 12 to 14-year-olds and had the stadium tour, with a little bit extra," detailed Annabella. "We got into the changing room and we had some lovely photos with Bryan's shirt hanging up there, posing holding it.

"We went through the tunnel and they put on the old Stone Roses track, and our girls and boys all walked out through to the pitch. That was really nice and we were given a fabulous tour by Tony, who spoke French, and it was a wonderful experience.

"That was the first part of the day and the kids were blown away by it. Not just the football kids but also those who study Advanced English with me. It was a very moving visit and, given we'd just had the anniversary of Munich, Tony told the story and the kids were in absolute silence. Obviously, they didn't know that story and it was thrilling to see their reaction."

"We headed to Carrington about 12:30 GMT and the kids got very excited when they spotted it was Benjamin Sesko reversing his car to let our coach through into the compex!

"We had about an hour with Bryan, after watching some Academy games which was very inspiring. They were all sat in the press conference room with him and, little by little, they opened up and asked him lots of different questions. I opened it by saying how impressed I was by his English. I teach French kids and said: 'Bryan, I watch you being interviewed on Match of the Day sometimes and you're getting on so much better with your English!' 

"In Avallon, the town where he's from, they have a Sports Personality of the Year award, which he won last year. So we presented him with the trophy.

"The kids were like wow, we're in Old Trafford. Wow, we're at Carrington. We appreciate that not everyone gets to go on these visits. It was a pretty amazing day for them all.

"Later, the kids made me cry because, unbeknownst to me, they'd secretly bought a little notebook and they filled it with thank-you messages for organising the trip. One of them wrote: 'It's been a dream of mine to visit Old Trafford at least once in my life. So thank you for making my dream come true.'

"And Bryan was so up for it and made it a special day for them. He's promised he's going to come back to visit the school again at the end of the season and sign some more shirts and photos for them."