When Paddy Met Scholes

United legend and MUTV pundit Paddy Crerand sat down to interview Paul Scholes recently, in a new series with his own unique style of questioning...

Paddy Crerand: Paul, every fan wants to ask you this: who taught you how to tackle?! You must be the worst tackler God’s ever produced! Does the boss not mention it?
Paul Scholes: [Laughs] Before every game he says “watch your tackles”.

PC: What was it like to play your first game for United?
PS: It was Port Vale away and there had been a lot of talk about the manager resting players to play the younger lads in the League Cup. I knew all the lads from growing up in the youth team, so that obviously helped and I managed to do quite well.

PC: What about the ‘99 European Cup final – that must have been a big disappointment…
PS: It was disappointing not to play as I had played in quite a few of the games leading up to it. But for me the most important thing was that we won.

PC: You must have been thinking whether you’d ever get the chance to play in the European Cup final. When Denis Law didn’t play in ’68 he wouldn’t accept his medal. Were you the same?
PS: Yeah I was, me and Roy (Keane) both got medals but they didn’t mean anything to either of us because we hadn’t been a part of it. You have to play in the final to warrant a medal, that’s my opinion. It’s the biggest game of the whole competition and you have to be on the pitch or at least on the bench to earn a medal.

PC: Players nowadays are far better equipped to play on longer. How long can you keep playing for?
PS: I haven’t made any decisions yet but last Christmas, as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t going to be playing on in 2010/2011 as I wasn’t playing well. Luckily things improved towards the end of the season. You need to be playing well to get into the team. I always set myself high standards as I want to feel that I am contributing to the team. If I’m not doing that then there is no point being here.