Despite his long and successful playing career, Peter Schmeichel could only properly hear the crowd for the first time at a football match last month.

“All of a sudden I could hear what the crowd were saying,” says the former Man United and Denmark goalkeeper.

“I’ve never been able to do that before. I’ve always had to ask other people or players, ‘what are they saying, or singing?’.”

The reason he could hear the roar – and a few obscenities too – when his former United team ended the season with a win at Brighton, was because, less than a fortnight before the match he was fitted with hearing aids.

“Before the game kicked off, I could actually have a conversation with the guys next to me, something which has normally been an issue. It’s been a real game-changer for me.”

Peter, who is now 60 and works in football media, has a congenital hearing issue which has slowly worsened over the years.

“I was born with hearing loss and always struggled to hear certain high frequencies. It wasn’t that much of an issue growing up and playing football, only if there was a lot of background noise. In noisy places I just can’t hear what people are saying even if they’re right in front of me.

“It has always been really annoying because, for instance, if you’re at a dinner, you’re often not part of the conversation because you can’t hear what people are saying. I got used to a kind of lip reading, but when you can’t see what people are saying – if they are turned away, for example – you don’t know what is being said. It’s very isolating.

“Luckily it was never a problem when I was playing. It’s so loud in a stadium there’s no way you can hear what someone on the touchline is saying anyway.”

But in everyday life he noticed his hearing getting worse. “If the washing machine beeps, my wife might look at me and say, ‘didn’t you hear it has ended?’. Some men will say not hearing a sound like that is a kind of positive,”
he jokes.

Peter also suffers from frequent nosebleeds, and when seeing a specialist about this long-standing issue more than two years ago, they suggested doing a hearing test too. “These showed that in both ears I couldn’t hear those high frequency sounds,” recalls Peter. “He said I wasn’t far off needing hearing aids.”

It was more recently, while doing some public speaking with fellow ex-player Freddie Ljungberg, that his deteriorating hearing really hit home. “We were at an event for 700 people and we were mic’d up,” says Peter. “With so much background noise,
I was really struggling to hear what Freddie and the MC were saying. I knew I had to do something about it.”

So in May, Peter went to a hearing centre in Copenhagen where he lives and was fitted with a pair of discreet hearing aids. “I have to say, like everybody else, it took me a long time to get around to having hearing aids,” he admits. “There’s always been a stigma about hearing aids being a sign of you being old and I must admit I’ve been guilty of thinking that as well.”

Peter’s father, who was a musician, lost his hearing but only wore hearing aids very late in life and lost out on a lot. “My dad, who unfortunately is not here any more, was very, very late getting hearing aids,” recalls Peter. “He didn’t really get a lot of time using them and had lost so much hearing, he didn’t get the benefit. He’d become withdrawn when the family was together, but started taking part more when he did eventually have them.

“You can choose if you want to live without hearing or decide you do want to live with hearing. But while you have to accept that it’s a scientific fact that whatever hearing loss you have suffered you will never get back, a hearing aid will protect whatever hearing you have left. Forget about what people think about hearing aids.”

Peter is now heading a Boots Hearingcare campaign to highlight the stigma which still exists around hearing loss and using hearing aids. According to the company’s own research, almost a fifth of people admit they have hearing loss but don’t wear a hearing aid.

Peter says he found the hearing aids a bit “itchy” at first, but apart from when he gets sweaty exercising, tries to wear them as much as he can.

He also doesn’t wear them when playing guitar with his rock band The Ones, wearing ear protectors instead. And when England play Denmark at the Euros next week, he’ll have an earpiece linking him to the studio while he is pitch-side, so won’t be using them during the game.

“My wife is now enjoying not having to repeat everything,” says Peter. “In the past, when she was walking away from me, I couldn’t hear her. Things are much better now.”

• If you are struggling with your hearing, visit your GP or an audiologist. If you are aged over 50, you can book a free hearing test at bootshearingcare.com