The Interior Life of Paul Scholes

The next day Paul Scholes's 85-year-old agent, Harry Swales, picks up the phone to discuss his client's enduring appeal. Swales, who wears extravagant mutton chop whiskers and is known as an "old-school" representative, has enjoyed a quiet life with the deal-phobic Scholes but wouldn't want it any other way.

"He's always been a player who wanted to play and train hard and when he'd finished go home to his family," said Swales, the day after Scholes had launched his memoirs, at Old Trafford. "All he wanted to do was what he did. He just wanted to pick up his kids from school.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/oct/01/paul-scholes-manchester-united/print

you're making that up.

oh.

he's fucked when his children move out.

driving perpetual circles around the school, waiting, waiting, waiting.

There's always tea

t minus ten seconds once his kids move out imo

The great tall windows looked over Manchester industralia. It had rained steadily all day and droplets came together and ran haphazardly down the glass - now left, now right, pausing for a time while lower drops rearranged themselves, but always pouring forward the only way they knew how. Amid it all the great iron clock gleamed dully, the glamour of grey water and regularity.

The kids watched the hands from the corridor. They never moved. Sometimes they'd look at something else and when they looked back the hands would be in a subtly different position, but there was nothing flashy about, just hands moving in the way the great hands of the past had always done. The school across the road had installed a digital clock when the renovation money came in, which was nice to look at but unreliable somehow. You never knew whether you were going to see '3.25', '1525' or even 'EEEE'.

No such worries here. Twenty-five past it said, what you saw was what you got. And in five minutes the bell would ring, and everything would follow naturally. It would be time to move outside, they'd get picked up, then it would be time to go home. Maybe other kids would go to the shops or hang about first, but it was too serious for that. This was life.

The hands were between twenty-five and half-past now. The rain weren't letting up. At least the kids knew they'd be getting picked up promptly. It would be miserable waiting in this but you didn't complain, you just got on with it. It had been hard sometimes these past few years. First Nicky Butt's kids left to go to that basket-case comprehensive across town; then a while afterwards Rio's kids went to college; now even Chicharitoito had left and got himself a job too, and the kids were the only ones of the old gang left.

Truth be told, the corridor wasn't really where they wanted to be. They still had something to give in the classroom, they were sure of it, but Sir wanted it this way. The desks were too small for them now, or the new pupils answered questions with the abandon of youth. And there was something in that. But you still felt you could do a job, you just dropped deeper and answered slower. Yet even those appearances in the classroom got fewer and fewer. Recently they'd just been hoping they'd be allowed in the corridor at all.

In their darker moments they wondered what it would be like outside. A day would come when they wouldn't come to school, they'd ... wherever it was people went outside. A shiver went through the place, as if a ghost had passed down the corridor. They looked back to the clock. 3.29.

Forcefeeding his kids their tea even whilst they're swimming:

He seems in his element in the pool, he's a real water baby and it's wonderful that he's got that to enjoy. Some children with autism are scared of water but Aiden's the opposite. He'd be swimming every minute of the day if he could and on holiday we even feed him in the pool.

Genius, IK

yeah since finding out his kid has autism this thread seems p mean

Hmmmm. Just for the record, I was unaware that one of Scholes's kids was autistic, and I would agree that knowing that does make this thread seem pretty mean, but I hadn't even bothered to read JM's post when I made my post, so, er, when I said "Genius, IK" that wasn't intended sarcastically.

I didn't know about the autism either, I think the weird and incessant cliches about Scholes still make the thread more than just mean-spirited...

I was unaware too and it does make my post look pretty bad read in that light, but for the record it really wasn't intended that way.

thread looks more prescient than mean imo

Think they tested the wrong member of the family for autism imho.

thread's not mean, obv. Kid's autism hasn't been a feature, for a start.

it cd be perceived as being a bit insensitive i guess. is it google proof?

Is that deindexing? I've deindexed it anyway - nice to get to do some actual modding for once, by way of penance.

Oh yeah I didn't mean it that way. It was fun until we found out the kid he was going to pick up was autistic last week. Now I just think it has lost reread value.

not really. Just the last few, and they're unintentional tbf.

People think Scholesy is shy and quiet but he's one of the most cutting people i know. Example: the day Diana Law, who worked in Utd's press department, was chatting with the players.

'Gary, you remind me of my brother for some reason,' she said.

'Why?' Scholesy replied, quick as a flash. 'Is he a knob too?'

quick as a flash

hahahahaha

typical scholesy

the first half yard is in the mind

unfortunately there's not much more insight into Scholesy's character in the pages of RED after that episode

the first half yard is in the mind

Funnily enough, Neville later goes on to say that Sheringham was Scholes' favourite player to play with. Still raves about him to this day apparently.

he will often be heard to say....'teddy...legend', he will often be heard to have said

"is he a knob too" #banter

You know you would all laugh if you were there.

I condemn this hateful, bitter thread

I have read RED, it was the first thing I got for my Kindle. It's a work of genius

For United's youngsters there could be no greater stimulus than being coaxed by the ginger embodiment of the club's ethos.

I think i posted the book's other example of Scholesy's famous wit before but no harm in giving it another airing

Then I saw Paul Scholes in the canteen after I'd spoken to the manager, I told him my fears. 'This is going to be messy,' I said.
He laughed.
'You don't mean Lionel.' Typical Scholesy, ready to take the mickey.

that were scholesy were that were

been enjoying the giggs outstanding achievement montages this week, but i have to say this, maybe it's just total nostalgia does anyone feel they were better in the 90s?

i think they were good in the early 90's but as they became more popular and pervasive i think maybe i grew jaded with them and then once they dropped a little out of fashion again and began to be used more sparingly i've gained a new appreciation for them, though obviously i don't condone fucking your brother's wife

nah tbf his brother had been lording it over him for years with his normal life lived in the shadow of ryan giggs, then he decided to rub it in by attempting to stake out a few square feet of happiness with a wife of his own. he had it coming.

the interior life of the brother of ryan giggs

"You see that tree?"

http://cdn.balls.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/pTgXb.jpg

He walked off, smiling, to go collect the kids.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-21243965

How will he pick the kids up now?

lol, beat me to it!

this is a crisis.

I'm imagining him crouched in the driveway for hours holding the "wheel" and trying his keys before realising there is no car under or around him.

Normally he'd phone Giggsy in these situations but... hadn't he read something about Giggsy in the papers a couple of years ago? He'd stolen his brother's car, maybe he's stolen Paul's as well? Better be safe, get Michael Clegg round in the van.

grey Chevrolet estate

Such a neat player, all these little interceptions cutting out parody at source.

A police spokesman said "inquiries to locate the car are ongoing".

SCHOLES: When will you find these guys? I mean, do you have any promising leads?

POLICEMAN: Leads, yeah. I'll just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They've assigned four more detectives to the case, got us working in shifts.

The interior life of an ice bandit. Grim times. The waiting, the watching. The cold. Maybe they'd come back, thought Paul, see if he'd got a different car. They should know better. They'd see the house and think everyone was out. They wouldn't see him crouched in the bushes. They might come up the driveway, take a look. Then he'd know. Then he could move on.

They'd played that team once, hadn't they, Rotor Volgograd. It was cold that night alright. A bit like this. Watching, waiting. He'd never forget that name, Volgograd. Nobody would, it was part of history wasn't it? The night Schmeichel scored.

"What if the kids had decided to pick themselves up," he thought, his blood running cold.

Exterior life rip

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2366573/Rio-Ferdinand-handed-baby-book-signing-session.html

couldnt help but recall the classic bobby spirals post itt

The book, which also features video segments of Ferdinand's celebrity friends, is sure to be a real treat