October 31 – Paul Scholes has always been a man who let his football do the talking. For Manchester United and England, the ‘Ginger Prince’ was widely considered one of the greatest players of his generation. But away from Old Trafford, the midfield maestro faced a very different task.
On a recent episode of The Stick to Football podcast, Scholes revealed he stepped back from commentary work to prioritise his autistic son, Aiden.
“Everything I’m going to do now just works around him,” he said. “I do studio work, but everything is built around his day. Last season on Thursday nights I’d do the Europa League for Manchester United. That’s the night I’d usually have him, so he was getting all agitated, biting and scratching. He knows the pattern’s not there straight away.”
Scholes, who co-parents 20-year-old Aiden with his ex-wife, said he initially kept his son’s diagnosis private during his playing days. Combining family and competition at the highest level proved highly challenging and distracting, which led to him being dropped by his manager, Sir Alex Ferguson.
“I never got a break from it, even when playing – it was very hard in those days,” he said. “I remember the manager dropped me the week after, and I hadn’t told anyone. I ended up telling them a few weeks later, as it was quite hard.”
Now 50, Scholes admits his greatest worry isn’t about football or fame, but the future.
“Even now, I don’t want sympathy or anything,” he said. “The big concern now is, because you’re getting a bit older, what happens when you’re not here? That’s the thing that’s now on my mind all the time.”
Autism spectrum disorder is the name for a range of conditions that affect how a person communicates and interacts with the world around them, as well as their interests and behaviour.
It is not a disease or an illness, but a condition that somebody is born with. It is estimated that one in every 100 people in the UK is autistic.
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