Dad-of-two Jasen Jackiw has been left stunned after a portrait he drew of Manchester United star Marcus Rashford caught the eye of the Reds star himself. Jasen only started drawing as a hobby to pass the time during lockdown and has spent a year creating the pencil and charcoal portrait of England and Reds star Marcus roaring next to a Lion.
After Jasen finished the drawing of the striker he shared the image on social media, explaining he had called it "Be a King" in appreciation of the Reds star. But what happened next was nothing short of a "dream" for Jasen and his family.
The image swiftly racked up the likes and shares, with friends and followers tagging in Marcus and his borther Dane to show him the incredible picture. In Jasen's original post he said that he would love to gift the portrait to Marcus to thank him for all he has done in both football and his community work in the local area.
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He said in the post: "I would like to gift it him if possible. No ties - just shake his hand and thank him for his England, Man United eforts and all he does for the community and present him with this drawing as a thank you!"
To Jasen's astonishment, just a day after sharing the portrait image on Instagram, he got a call from Manchester United. They had seen the portrait, and invited him and his son to Old Trafford to present the drawing to Marcus.
Jasen, 38, who lives in Hale with wife Emma and their two children Mia, 14, and Masen, 11, still can't quite believe it. When they got to the United ground, not only did they meet Marcus, but they then got to meet all his team-mates and even manager Erik ten Hag.
Jasen says: "I posted it on Instagram and Facebook on the Wednesday, and it went crazy. Then on the Thursday afternoon Manchester United rang me and said we've seen this drawing everyone's talking about this drawing, they said they'd shown Marcus and we'd like to invite you in and present him with the drawing.
"We met Marcus on the Friday and he was just a really nice lad. We thought that was it, but then the lady said: "no we are going to take you round now to meet the rest of the team".
"My son was half crying at this point we couldn't believe what was happening We met the manager and the team and they all had a photograph with my boy.
"What a dream day it was. We were able to stay to watch them train. We sat in the car afterwards and my son said 'I can't believe what's just happened dad'.
"I never in a million years thought I'd get to go and meet him, or to gift the portrait to him. Everything I could have dreamt of for that drawing and more happened - Manchester United didn't have to do any of it but they did."
After receiving the portrait, Marcus went on to score in United's 2-1 win over Crystal Palace at Old Trafford last Saturday. After the game, he posted the photo of himself meeting Jasen on his Instagram stories with the picture to thank him saying: "This is sick btw - Thank you!"
Jason swiftly found himself besieged with messages from fans across the world congratulating him on the portrait. And many have been asking if he can draw portraits for them too.
Jasen, who runs a restoration and paint coatings business Prymo in Sale, says it was only when lockdown hit that he first started to draw. But he's now thinking about which other famous faces he might like to draw in his spare time.
He says: "I used to draw in school, I was always good at art at school, which coincidentally was Ashton-on-Mersey where Marcus also went. But since I left school which is many many years ago now I've never drawn really, I've been busy building my own business.
"But then lockdown happened and all of a sudden you had to keep your mind busy it was actually my mum who said 'why don't you try and draw'. So I did, I drew Boris Johnson because at the time he was very on topic! And that picture went viral on Facebook.
"A thing for me is always imposter syndrome I didn't think it was that good. I did another one of Bugzy Malone - and he saw that and posted about it too. They were only little A4 drawings so I thought do you know what I'm going to challenge myself with something big.
"It's taken me about a year to do the Marcus portrait because of course when lockdown ended, life got back in the way. I did half an hour here and there.
"It took me that long to do I had to change his football top twice! Then the World Cup came and I thought, I know why not add a lion to it too.
"I've now had so many people asking me if they can commission me for drawings of their loved ones, their nans, their kids. And it's got me thinking I would love to draw more famous people too. But I'm not full time doing it."
But he laughed: "If United said they wanted to commission me to do the whole team of players I'd take time off work to get that done!"
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