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Mark Goldbridge will be back on the touchline managing the YouTube All-Stars in the Sidemen Charity Match.
The event will see a whole host of the social media platform's biggest creators face off at West Ham's London Stadium this afternoon (September 9). Goldbridge is making his second appearance having featured last year for the first time.
The 44-year-old is famous online for his rants about Manchester United, which have seen him rack up roughly 3million subscribers across his four YouTube channels – most notably The United Stand.
He started recording himself and uploading clips back in 2014, when he was still working as a police detective investigating financial fraud. His job meant he had to create an alias.
READ MORE: Sidemen charity match full line-ups, TV channel, live stream details and kick-off time
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Goldbridge's real name is Brent Di Cesare and he's of Italian origin. Being born in Nottingham, his dad would take him to the City Ground as a youngster to watch Forest.
But his parents split when he was aged six and he became a Red Devils fan through his grandad on his mum's side. Goldbridge moved to Ireland and worked in insurance in his early professional life.
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It's there where he met his wife aged 20, and they went on to wed in June 2008. He's still happily married to this day and they have three children together, two daughters and a son, with the family living in Solihull.
Goldbridge returned to England in his mid-20s and ended up becoming a police officer. Explaining the career change during his first appearance on JackMaate's Happy Hour podcast in December 2020, he said: "When I came back from Dublin, I had no qualifications.
"I had a C in Maths and English and that was it. And although I had quite a good job in Ireland, I couldn’t get a job anywhere. My wife said ‘why don’t you go in the police?’.
"I wanted to do the fire service but I’m not very good with heat, I’m really irritable in the heat so I went in the police. Uniform about a year-and-a-half then a detective for 10 years."
Goldbridge admitted he would "just walk about and try and stay out of trouble" as an officer before he made the move up to detective, adding: "I haven’t got the physique for it, have I?"
He also spoke about his harrowing experiences, including seeing "well over 10" corpses on the job. "I remember when I saw my first dead body," he continued.
"The smell was horrible and it was not very nice. It was in a tower block in Birmingham, been in there about two weeks."
Seeking an alternative path he started Soccer Box TV after England had been knocked out of the 2014 World Cup to rant about the disappointment in video format.
He later rebranded to The United Stand, focusing on the club he supports. Since then he's enjoyed a steep rise, thanks in large part to his hilarious comments – such as comparing Harry Maguire and Jonny Evans to "two dogs s****ing on ice skates" – going viral.
It's not been all plain sailing for him, though. He also candidly spoke on Happy Hour about a skin cancer scare he had, having to have a mole removed "which could've killed me".
He said: "I go for mole mapping once a year because I’ve got so many of them and I’ve had it before, and I was so irresponsible in the sun when I was a kid. I used to go on holiday and I don’t think my parents knew what sun cream was."
- Manchester United FC
- Premier League
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