The women behind the name: Single mothers who raised Premier League stars

Trophies and Premier League medals fill the headlines. But behind some of the biggest names in English football stands a quieter, harder story.

A single mother working the night shift, skipping meals, doing it alone and a son following a dream that turned into reality only because of the mother’s sacrifices.

Five Premier League stars, five unbelievable stories of superhero women who carried the weight so their sons could run free.

Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)

Melanie Maynard raised five children in Wythenshawe, south Manchester, working three jobs at a time and often going without food so her kids didn’t have to. Rashford has never once let the world forget it. When he received his MBE, he said the medal belonged to her.

When asked in interviews who the toughest person he knows is, his answer has been the same. “In football interviews I often get asked, ‘Who is the toughest person you know?’ People always expect me to say another footballer. But my answer every single time is my mum.”

That debt became policy. His campaign to extend free school meals during the pandemic, which forced two government U-turns, was rooted directly in what he watched his mother endure. The man and the mission are inseparable from her sacrifice.

Raheem Sterling (Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal)

Sterling’s father was murdered in Kingston, Jamaica when Raheem was two years old. His mother, Nadine Clarke, made a brutal but deliberate choice, she left for England to get an education and build a life, leaving Raheem and his sister with their grandmother for years.

She has since described herself in three words on Father’s Day: “a mum and a dad.” Sterling has written candidly about watching other children with their mothers from across a yard in Kingston, not yet old enough to understand what she was building for him.

“My whole mission was to get a proper contract so that my mother and sister didn’t have to stress anymore.” By the time he arrived in London at five years old, the ambition was already set.

Paul Pogba (Manchester United)

Yeo Moriba separated from her husband in 1996 when Paul was just two years old, and raised three boys alone in one of the most difficult council estates on the outskirts of Paris. All three became professional footballers, despite not being the best friends.

Pogba’s called her his first girlfriend, his greatest inspiration, and, according to family, the only person whose word he has ever fully accepted. When Alex Ferguson came to the family home personally to convince a teenage Pogba to stay at United, it was Yeo who showed him the door.

The boys had already decided. A close family friend put it simply at the time: his mother is the only person Paul listens to, always.

Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City, Arsenal)

Vera Lucia raised four children alone in Jardim Peri, one of Sao Paulo’s most deprived neighbourhoods, working as a domestic maid after Gabriel’s father walked out before he was even born. The community knew her as Dona Vera.

Jesus has a tattoo on his body that reads: Every step I make, every road I take, every path I choose, your hand will guide me, Vera Lucia. She travelled with him to Manchester when he joined City and, by multiple accounts, took charge of his salary to keep him grounded.

Her own words on how she raised her sons leave little room for ambiguity. “I demand respect because I raised all three of them on my own, with the help of God.”

Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City)

The newest name on this list, and perhaps the most telling sign that this story doesn’t age. Holli O’Reilly raised Nico alone on a working-class estate in Ancoats, north Manchester describing herself as both mother and father to him.

When City published the interview marking Nico’s new five-year contract in 2025, they called it simply: “That Mother/Son Relationship.” After every game, his first call is to her. He made his England debut that same year.

The geography is different from Rashford’s Wythenshawe, but the blueprint is the same: a city, a council estate, a woman doing it alone, and a son who refuses to let anyone forget it.