MANCHESTER United fan Oscar Hughes will enjoy a massive boost in his recovery from a brain tumour today when he becomes the team’s mascot.

Oscar, eight, from Dunnington, who underwent an 11-hour operation earlier this year and is still having regular chemotherapy, will walk on to the Old Trafford pitch with the team captain before United’s match against Crystal Palace.

His mother Marie said yesterday the experience would be a real boost to Oscar’s morale.

“He is absolutely over the moon about it,” she said. “He hasn’t stopped smiling.”

She said Oscar had long been a United supporter and was a season ticket holder and so, after he underwent the emergency surgery, her husband Ian had written to the club to say what had happened.

He had hoped the club might perhaps send him something signed but instead, it wrote back inviting him to be the mascot.

She said Oscar would have to undergo a total of eight cycles of chemotherapy, with the treatment continuing until next May, and he had been through two courses so far.

“We try to ensure there is something to look forward to each cycle,” she said.

Oscar is also looking forward next to the Community Pride awards in October, at which he is a finalist in the Child of the Year contest.

Marie said Oscar, a keen tennis player and footballer, had suffered a little nerve damage from his treatment and was undergoing daily physiotherapy to ensure he could get back to playing sport when the treatment finishes.

She said the treatment left him tired and vulnerable to infection, but he went to school at Dunnington Primary School as often as possible.

She added that he had a very positive and cheerful attitude to his illness, treating it like a footballing injury that could keep a player out of action for a year.