Gazza: My Story

by Paul Gascoigne

  Colin Suggett was the youth team coach, having finally retired from playing. He told me later that I gave him more aggravation and grief than any other player in his whole coaching life. He had me running lap after lap of the ground in training, trying to get my weight down. One very hot day, he coaxed me to do just one more lap. I was knackered already and said I couldn’t do any more. ‘Just one, son.’ I set off. I managed to stagger round somehow. I could see my mates in the youth team, leaning on the fence sucking ice lollies. They’d done their training to Colin’s satisfaction. When I completed my final lap, Colin said to me, ‘You lied. You could do another one. So I want you to go round one more time.’ I told him to fuck off, which of course I shouldn’t have done. I got punished for that.

  It was Colin Suggett who first called me ‘Gazza’. My dad had been known as Gassa to his friends, and I’d sometimes been called that as well. But it was Colin who turned it into Gazza. I don’t think he did it deliberately – it was just his Sunderland accent, the way he pronounced it. And I became Gazza from then on.

  I had all the ball skills, shooting and dribbling, but I have to admit I wasn’t very fast and I was a bit overweight. In the gym, we often did exercises with the first-team players, such as Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley. I learned a lot from them, and tried to copy what they did. The senior professionals had a session where you had to trap the ball with one touch and then shoot through different-shaped targets – a circle, a square, a triangle. You didn’t know which target to aim at till the coach shouted it out, so you had to be quick and accurate. I was usually the only apprentice who could do it. I always had confidence in my ability and succeeded in most of the ball exercises and tests, but things didn’t always go so smoothly off the pitch.

  We apprentices had to be at the training ground by 9.15 every morning. I went there on the bus from Dunston and I was never late. I couldn’t wait to get there. As well as training, the apprentices had to do a lot of the shitty jobs: sweeping the dressing-room floors, cleaning the toilets and the showers, cleaning the boots for the first team. I did Wes Saunders’ boots for a while and then Chris Waddle’s. Chris had come to the club from non-league Tow Law. Arthur Cox had signed him for a set of second-hand floodlights, but he’d become one of the stars of the team.

  Chris, so he says now, thought I was a joke, the smallest, podgiest player he’d seen in his life, but when he saw me with the ball, he realised I was in a different class. Our relationship didn’t get off to a very good start, however. One day, when I gave him his boots, he said I hadn’t cleaned them well enough. ‘They are the tools of your trade and they have to be kept in top condition,’ so he lectured me. But I was only sixteen, and lippy, so I told him to fuck off and clean them himself.

  Chris gave me a dead leg and in front of everyone. Somehow I managed not to cry, but after that I didn’t give him any more cheek.

  Not long after I signed as an apprentice, the youth team was involved in a tournament up in Aberdeen. It was a big event, involving youth teams from Rangers and Bayern Munich, and it provided a brilliant break from normal training and cleaning people’s boots. It lasted quite a few days, and in the middle of it, over the weekend, we were allowed home.

  That weekend I decided to have a go on an 80cc scrambler motorbike belonging to a friend. I didn’t have a licence, and couldn’t really ride it, but I’d been on a smaller bike before, so I thought I knew what to do. I got as far as the first bend, going too fast, and flew off. I ended up at my regular haunt, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, having loads of stitches in my knee. I think the doctor who put them in must have been an apprentice himself, because he made a right mess of the job and my legs looked worse than they were. I went back to Aberdeen but I missed out on playing in the semi-final.

  I didn’t tell the club what had really happened, but when I returned to training I still had these terrible marks on my legs. Long trousers or tracksuit bottoms would have hidden them, but of course you don’t wear them for training. I had the bad luck to meet Arthur Cox just as I arrived on my first day back. He immediately realised I had been in some sort of accident, so I had to tell him the truth.

  ‘Do you really want to be a professional footballer, Gascoigne?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ I could feel myself starting to cry.

  ‘Then behave like one. One more stupid trick like this, and you’re out. Do you understand?’

  We’d all been lectured on the usual things: keep off the booze, don’t smoke, don’t get mixed up with the wrong sort of women, don’t do anything risky which might lead to accidents. At least I didn’t drink or smoke. In fact I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as people smoking, perhaps because my mam and dad smoked so much. And I certainly didn’t get involved with the wrong sort of women. I started going out with my first proper girlfriend when I was about sixteen. She was Gail Pringle, the daughter of Alfie Pringle, who coached Dunston Boys. I spent a lot of time at their house, and they were very good to me. I went out with Gail for about two years before we slept together, so I must have been eighteen by then. Yeah, it does seem a long time to wait, but I was too nervous at that age, and I think she was as well. When I finally took the plunge, it was a relief more than anything else.

  When I was seventeen, I had to cope with another death in my life: that of Steven Wilson, who had been a friend for a long time. He’d become an apprentice at Middlesbrough at the same time as I signed forms with Newcastle. He didn’t really like it there and I thought I might be able to get him into our youth squad with me, so I encouraged him to chuck it in at Boro. While he waited for an opening at Newcastle, he went to work with his uncle in the building trade. It was at work that he became the victim of a fatal building-site accident. I cried for days. I blamed myself for his death because I’d been the one who encouraged him to leave Boro. If he’d stayed there, it wouldn’t have happened. I know it didn’t really make sense to blame myself, but I did, and I felt terrible.

  The deaths of little Steven Spraggon and then Steven Wilson were not the only ones on my conscience over the years. A long while later a cousin of mine who had bad asthma collapsed and died after suffering an asthma attack while playing football. Some doctors had said it was bad to play when you had asthma, but I told my cousin that was rubbish, it was OK to play, and he went ahead.

  It seemed to me that, ever since Steven Spraggon had run into the road that day, I’d been surrounded by young people dying, and that I was partly to blame. Why had they died, and not me? Perhaps I would be next. I was cheeky and chubby and appeared happy-go-lucky to most people, but I was still plagued by those obsessions, little rituals I couldn’t shake off. I still had to lay out my clothes and kit in a certain way, and I didn’t sleep very well, either. Thinking about death could keep me awake all night.

  I was also worried about my career. I was afraid that Newcastle would chuck me out because of my weight. Maybe they would release me at eighteen, once I’d completed my two-year apprenticeship, and I’d never become a professional. I still ate sweets all the time, and chips and hamburgers, and then I would secretly make myself sick to get rid of it all. I don’t know how I found out you could do that. Perhaps I saw someone on TV who was bulimic. Someone who stuck two fingers down their throat and brought all their food up. Funnily enough, my sister Anna later got a role in a television series as a bulimic girl. Little did she realise that she needed to look no further than her own doorstep to research the part.

  Anna didn’t train to become an actress till she was twenty, though she’d always wanted to be one. She did various office jobs, then she gave it all up to go and do a performing arts course at North Tyneside College. She got a part in a local film, Sheila’s Stories, and then became one of the original actresses in Byker Grove, the TV series set on Tyneside. She was also in a feature film called Dream On. Aye, she did well, when you think about it. Coming from the Gascoigne family. She later had a part in Coronation Street, too.

  Apart from the bulimia, or attempted bulimia,
the twitches got worse. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one I developed nine different nervous tics. I was still making those gulping noises, like the noises a pigeon makes. In the morning, I’d wake up and tell myself I wasn’t going to gulp any more; I’d do something else instead, like blinking all the time. Then that in turn became a habit I couldn’t stop. Or I’d keep opening my mouth, as wide as I could, or stretch my lips until they hurt. Another twitch was moving my right hip all the time, or my right shoulder, or my neck. Even when I was playing, I’d find my neck twitching from side to side. Sometimes coaches would shout at me to stop it, so I’d try for a while, or start another twitch. I was too embarrassed to tell the doctor about all this.

  One compulsion, which I still have to this day, was kicking my right toe on the ground when I was running. I developed that when I was an apprentice. I did it in training, or when playing, and it got so bad that my right toenail came off, I’d been banging it so often. All that blinking over and over again could be painful as well. I would end up with my eyes hurting like hell.

  I can’t explain these nervous twitches. I knew I was doing them, but that knowledge didn’t mean I could control them. I’d often go to my bedroom, or somewhere on my own, and twitch my neck twenty times, telling myself that would get rid of the compulsion so that I wouldn’t have to do it again when I was in public. That strategy usually worked – up to a point. I’d stop doing whatever I’d been doing, but then I’d develop another twitch.

  One thing I hated was being on my own. Solitude always seemed to make my problems worse. Luckily, it was around this time that I met a mate who was to become my closest and longest-standing friend. I was hardly ever alone again from then on.

  Jimmy ‘Five Bellies’ Gardner says he remembers me from when I was about four or five, when his nan lived in Edison Gardens, near us, and that he used to play in the street with me. I have no memory of that. But his recollection might be better than mine because he’s older than me. About three years older and thirty stone heavier.

  My first clear memory of him is seeing him on the pitch with some Sunday league side – Whickham Sports, I think it was – when I was sixteen or so. No, he wasn’t playing. He was this fat kid running on with a bucket and sponge whenever someone got injured. He’s not very tall, smaller than me, but he had so many bellies. I burst out laughing every time he appeared, shouting something like, ‘Go on, you fat bastard,’ and he probably gave me a mouthful back. After the game, he came across and asked me: ‘Are you Paul Gascoigne?’ I think by then he must have known I was an apprentice with Newcastle.

  Not long afterwards, he came into the Dunston Excelsior, where I was sitting with my girlfriend, Gail. When she went off to powder her nose, Jimmy sat down in her chair. ‘That’s my lass’s seat,’ I informed him. He said he just wanted to tell me that he could give me a lift to training any time I wanted. He didn’t actually have a car, but he could borrow his dad’s. From that moment on, we became best friends. The first day he took me to training, I asked if I could drive the car, and drove straight into a wall.

  Jimmy taught me to drive in that car of his dad’s. After a fashion. I was always bashing into kerbs, hitting things. One Bonfire Night, we stuck some Catherine wheels on the windscreen of Jimmy’s dad’s car and drove it round with them whirling away. It looked brilliant, and everyone was staring at us – till the front windscreen turned black from the smoke. When we touched it, it fell out.

  Out of my wages, I eventually managed to buy an old Mini, although I hadn’t passed my test and nor did I have any insurance and that. Jimmy worked in a garage at the time, so he knew a bit about old cars and gave it the once-over for me. We were out together in the Mini one day, after giving a lift to some girls we fancied (or girls Jimmy fancied), just driving round and round, messing about, when suddenly this hippy ran across the road in front of us. At least, he looked a bit like a hippy. Whoever he was, we hit him.

  I was at the wheel and flew into a complete panic. I just drove on, back to Newcastle. When we got there, I dumped the car and smashed the front windscreen to make it look as if the Mini had been stolen and wrecked. I didn’t really know what I was doing. It was stupid, but I was in such a state, thinking that was it, my career was over, the club would definitely get rid of me now.

  I had saved up some money which I’d put in the bank, and I told Jimmy that he could have £100 if he took the blame and said he’d been driving the car if we got caught. I was staying at Gail’s house at the time. I didn’t tell her, or her dad, Alfie, what had happened. They had been so good to me and I didn’t want them to be angry with me. Jimmy went back to his home nearby.

  In the middle of the night, I hear this banging at the door. The police have arrived. They tell Alfie they’ve come about an accident, but of course he doesn’t know anything about it. They get me out of bed and say there’s been a car accident. I tell them my car’s been stolen and I haven’t been in any accident. And they say, ‘Don’t try that, son, we know the whole story. Jimmy has told us what happened.’

  What a fat bastard. He’s supposed to be my best friend and he’s told them everything, even that I had been driving. Or so the police said.

  I asked about the kid who had been run over. Was he OK? They said he’d had something like twenty-four stitches, but was now recovering. I asked if I could visit him and they said no. I think they thought I’d try to bribe him not to let it get to court. As it was, it all came out and we had to answer the charges.

  In court, when Jimmy was giving evidence, I was kicking him under the table. The bastard. I was fined £260 and got eight points on my non-existent licence and Jimmy received a £120 fine and four points. When Jimmy was asked by the judge how he would like to pay, he said he’d pay £1 a week. The judge inquired if he could make it £2, and Jimmy said, OK, he’d try. When I was asked, I said I’d pay my £260 right away.

  That evening, Jimmy and I went out and got drunk.

  Later I got a right bollocking from Mr McKeag, one of the Newcastle directors. I was told this would be my last warning.

  Jimmy and I had so many laughs together, doing daft things, egging each other on. Jimmy’s mates once got a crossbow from somewhere and Jimmy put an apple on his head while I tried to hit the apple. Then we got hold of an air gun. Jimmy stood twenty yards away with his pants down and I fired at his bare arse. For each of the pellets I managed to hit him with, I had to pay him £25. His arse ended up looking like the end of a watering can. We used to drive that old Mini right through hedges, just for a laugh, though we did take the precaution of wearing crash helmets in case we got injured. Eventually, the car fell to pieces.

  I had failed my driving test several times, so I took my next one in another area, where I was told it was easier. Jimmy found out that the examiner might accept some money to pass me. I offered him £50 and he said, ‘Make it £75.’ The examiner kept the money but failed me. Bastard. I later sat it again elsewhere and passed.

  I was still having trouble with Colin Suggett, the youth coach. I was doing well in the youth team, and we were winning things, but he was on my back all the time, going on about my weight, about getting into trouble off the pitch, getting injured, the usual stuff. I suppose that was hardly surprising, but it got me down, made me depressed, and then I’d feel guilty and ashamed at my own behaviour, about eating all this junk food, but because I was depressed, I’d just eat even more.

  Colin was still making me do extra laps after everyone else had finished training, to get my weight down, which I hated, especially when the others hung around laughing at me. I remember Wes Saunders standing there having a milkshake while I was sweating like a pig. One day, after the coaches had gone, I was getting changed on my own when I felt so fed up I went out on the pitch again and got on to the groundsman’s tractor. I didn’t really know how to drive it, but I aimed it straight at the dressing rooms and jumped off just in time. It knocked about twenty-five bricks off the dressing-room wall. I was fined £75 for that.
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  I worried, all the time, that the club would get rid of me, not because of my football but because of my behaviour. At home I would moan constantly that I was being picked on, it wasn’t fair, Colin Suggett was being a bastard to me. My dad said he’d go up to the club and thump any of the coaches who were picking on me, but I managed to stop him. What I didn’t know was that my mam had written to the club saying everyone was being horrible to me, making my life a misery; that the club was making me depressed and unwell. I was called in and her letter was read out to me. That was really embarrassing.

  I knew that only a small percentage of apprentices ever get through into the first team and make it as professionals. But I was confident enough of my football to think I would be the one to make it. I believed I was better than the rest. Well, most of the rest. I have to admit I was a bit jealous of Ian Bogie. He was a year younger than me and had played for England Schoolboys, which I never did. That was the real reason why I was jealous. Not that I told him that, or anyone else.

  I realised that to be the best player among the youth players, which I was determined to be, I had to be stronger. So I did a lot of extra training with weights and things to build up my upper body. Jimmy used to borrow weights and medicine balls from the training ground and I’d go out in the evenings to Dunston Park and train there on my own. Then, late at night, Jimmy would return the equipment and sneak it back where it belonged.

  Ian Bogie was probably the one that was better than me at the time, for his age, but there were other good talents as well – Joe Allon, who went on to play for Chelsea, and Tony Haytor, who was a brilliant tackler. Tony Nesbit was a right workhorse, but he got a nasty injury and the last I heard of him, he’d become a policeman. Jeff Wrightson was good, as was Paul Stephenson. Some made it, some didn’t. Some showed early promise and then didn’t develop. I always thought that, because he had played for England, the pressure of expectation hung over Ian Bogie. It worked against him, and then he got an injury, which didn’t help.