On Autism Awareness Day, Jon Taylor explains why it is a day that means so much to him.
The winger was due to visit Autism Plus to show his support for the charity’s life-changing work this week but, with life as we know it on hold for now, he explained why raising awareness of Autism is important.
“I’ve got a good mate of mine who has Autism - he’s a great lad and he absolutely loves football. His name’s John Preston but he likes to get called Froggy,” he said.
“Every team that I’ve played for, he’ll tell you every single player, all their dates of birth, the country they’re from, who they’ve played for previously. He knows absolutely everything about all our team now!”
Football plays a massive part in John’s life and Taylor was able to give him an amazing day when he took him to Roundwood Sports Complex to watch training last season.
“When I was at Rotherham, I asked Paul Warne if I could bring him to training one day and all the lads just fell in love with him,” he added.
“He had the best day of his life - he’ll never forget that day. He still talks about it all the time – and the Gaffer at the time Paul Warne was amazing with him.
“While we were training, he took him to the top of the hill and sat down with him and was just talking to him while they were watching us training. He was being really nice to him and it just made his day – I can’t thank Paul Warne enough for that because that was unbelievable what he did for him.”
While Taylor hasn’t been able to visit Autism Plus this week, he’s looking forward to working with the charity in the future.
“I was really looking forward to doing the visit but obviously we can’t do that now but when we go back, we’ll work something else out,” he said.