Patrick Bamford: The Leeds United footballer who plays the violin, speaks French and could have gone to Harvard

Striker Patrick Bamford plays the violin and piano, enjoys learning languages and was offered a scholarship to attend the world's best university.

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The 24-year-old combined training at Nottingham Forest's academy with studying for his A Levels at fee-paying Nottingham High School.

Bamford is a distant relative of JCB construction chairman Sir Anthony Bamford, and grew up in the Nottinghamshire countryside near Newark. His mother's family are Irish, and he considered representing Ireland at international level - he was capped for their under-18 side before switching to England under-21s.

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He joined Forest at the age of eight, but Bamford wasn't even able to play competitive football at school - instead he played rugby for Nottingham High.

He got five A*s at GCSE and went on to study French, history and biology at A Level. His academic prowess was recognised by Harvard University in the US, who offered him a soccer scholarship which he turned down to sign professional terms with Forest.

"I've been wanting to be the main man for a long time" says Patrick Bamford

Speaking about his options to Daily Mail Sport in 2014, Bamford described his place at the world's top-ranked university - part of the prestigious Ivy League - as a 'back-up' option as he was already committed to making it in professional football. He said he would have studied business.

A talented musician, Bamford told The Times in a 2015 interview that he once gave a Bach piano recital to his Middlesbrough team-mates, and he can also play the violin, guitar and saxophone. He can speak conversational French, German and Spanish, and has previously talked about studying for a part-time degree before he finishes playing.

Family-orientated Bamford posts photos of himself with his parents and sisters, Ciara and Orla, on his Instagram page - he recently attended Orla's graduation ceremony at the University of Birmingham.

His girlfriend is Alice Bates, who has 27,000 Instagram followers.