Gazza: My Story

by Paul Gascoigne

  Fergie had discussions with my lawyer, Mel Stein, as if he was certain I would sign for them. The figures bandied around seemed enormous at the time, though they were nothing like those that change hands today. All I was really interested in was being able to buy a house for my mam and dad. In Fergie’s autobiography, this somehow got turned into me saying that the club had to buy a house for them, but this wasn’t so.

  On 7 May I pulled on a Newcastle shirt at St James’ Park for the last time. Nothing had been officially settled, but I knew, and most people assumed, that I wouldn’t be playing for them the next season. The game was against West Ham and at the end of it, I ran to the Gallowgate End and applauded those fans who had been applauding me. I ran all round the ground and finally left the pitch in tears. In the dressing room, it was very quiet. A few of the lads wished me luck, but I could sense a distance between me and them.

  There was, in fact, nearly a last-minute change of plan. John Hall, later Sir John, was mounting a bid to take over Newcastle FC, and he rang me up. He said that although he could make no promises about when and how he might gain control of the club, he wanted me to stay. But he understood that I couldn’t wait much longer. As it turned out, he didn’t take over till quite a bit later.

  I was pleased to get away with the Under-21s in Toulon. We started with a 2–1 win over Mexico. In the squad we had Nigel Martyn, David Platt, Michael Thomas, David Rocastle, all of whom made the full national team. In the semi-final against Morocco I got our goal, which took us into the final against France. The French decided to man mark me. Once you’ve been marked by Vinnie Jones, there’s not much that can frighten you. We tired in extra time and France beat us 4–2.

  I got back to England to find that Newcastle had now decided that I was worth £2 million. It doesn’t seem a lot now, but it seemed a fortune then, for someone who had just turned 21 and had yet to play for the national team, and also someone for whom they were only wanting to pay £250 a week. That was what Newcastle were offering, if I stayed and signed a new contract. Spurs, on the other hand, were prepared to pay about six times that and at Man United, so they said, I would get almost as much.

  I hadn’t actually met Terry Venables, the Spurs manager, yet. I agreed to go down to London to be introduced to him at Mel’s office in Mayfair. I sat in a room with El Tel, cuddling a giant talking bear called Teddy Ruxpin, which Mel and Len Lazarus, my accountant, had given me for my twenty-first birthday. I let Teddy do most of the talking. I don’t think Terry Venables could really believe it, but at least he could see what he might be getting for his money.

  For my part, I was very impressed by what Venables had to say, especially when he told me that if I came to him, and was trained by him, I would be sure to get into the full England team. That mattered to me even more than the money being offered.

  In the absence of any firm offer from Liverpool, just the request to wait a year, I didn’t know what to do. I still hadn’t decided against Manchester United. In fact, if anything I was veering towards them. I thought I’d feel more at home if I stayed in the north. Going south would be a big change. When I played for the Under-21s, a lot of the southern lads couldn’t understand my accent, or so they claimed.

  I was invited by Fergie to come and look round Old Trafford. I set out to drive myself to Manchester, but changed my mind and didn’t go that day. I was in a very confused state.

  Fergie phoned to say that he was about to go on holiday, but he really did want me to sign for him. I have to admit I did tell him on the phone, ‘Don’t worry, go on your holiday, and when you come back, I’ll sign for you.’ I know he was furious when I didn’t, as he has since revealed. But while Liverpool remained my first choice, I just couldn’t make up my mind. One day I would feel I should go to Old Trafford and the next I wasn’t at all sure.

  Irving Scholar of Spurs then made a smart move. He got Glenn Roeder to talk to me. We met in a pub in Newcastle and Glenn told me it would be good at Spurs. This only added to my confusion. I went down to London to talk to Irving Scholar and I was most impressed by his enthusiasm. He seemed to be a real football fan. Everyone at the club was friendly, and not at all stuck up, as I had thought they might be. There didn’t seem to be a lot of difference between Geordies and Cockneys.

  Mel tried to get hold of Fergie, by now away on holiday, to ask if Man United would match the terms Spurs were offering, but he couldn’t get through. Mobile phones were not then as good as they are now, especially when it came to international calls.

  Irving Scholar was offering me a very good deal, and lots of extras. Tottenham were then sponsored by Hummell, and I was wearing their boots at the time, so that was another factor. Chris Waddle had convinced me I’d like it at White Hart Lane. I liked the look of Venables and Scholar, and they had offered me the best terms. So, in the summer of 1988, I signed for Spurs.

  I’m sure Fergie thought I’d behaved like a stupid little bastard, double-crossing him, and many people feel he’s never forgiven me. He sent me a letter saying I’d been a silly boy, that he’d believed me when I’d promised I would join Man United. I don’t know where that letter is now. There’s no doubt he was upset at the time, but he later invited me to play in his testimonial, and I agreed. And he gave me a watch, which I still have somewhere. As for me, I never hold grudges against anyone or any club.

  Now my immediate future had finally been resolved. I was sad to be leaving Newcastle, and in some ways I didn’t want to go. They have the best fans in the world, but I could see that for the moment they were a selling not a buying club.

  “They [the schoolboys] asked me things like: ‘How big are Gazza’s balls?’”

  Vinnie Jones, after addressing the boys of Eton College, 1996

  “I had been determined to bring Paul to United ever since he had tortured us with a devastating performance for Newcastle at St James’ Park. We sent out the powerful midfield of Moses, Robson and Whiteside that day but the twenty-year-old Gascoigne outplayed them, crowning his precocious display by patting Remi Moses on the top of the head like a headmaster mildly rebuking one of his pupils … What a performance, and what a player! ‘I’m going to sign him,’ I told my assistant, Archie Knox, on the way home …

  The fact that he never wore the red shirt was his mistake, not ours. As far as I am concerned, I had a solid promise that he would sign for me and I think that his change of mind hurt both of us.”

  Sir Alex Ferguson, Managing My Life, 1999

  7

  FUN AT SPURS

  I started at Spurs on £1,500 a week – compared with the £120 a week I’d been getting for the previous few years at Newcastle. I was also paid appearance money, which took my wages up to around £2,500 a week. There was another bonus if I played for England. And I got a good boot deal, too, worth £10,000. I didn’t have anything in my contract about bonuses for scoring goals. A lot of players have those, but I’ve never asked for them. It puts too much pressure on you.

  Spurs were known as big spenders at the time, and there was a lot of cash around at White Hart Lane. They were the top team for gate money. In 1985 they were taking £2.5 million a year, ahead of Manchester United who were on only £2.25 million, with Liverpool and Arsenal quite a way behind. Things have changed a bit since then.

  When I was signing for the club, I asked about a car, and they agreed to give me one – a Merc, I think it was. ‘What about me dad?’ I said. ‘I want to buy him one as well.’ They said they’d see to that too.

  ‘Anything else?’ inquired Irving.

  ‘Me sister,’ I said. ‘She wants a sunbed.’

  ‘Is that it?’ he said at last, throwing his chequebook and credit cards at me.

  I thought for a moment. ‘Fishing. I could do with some new fishing gear.’

  There was a fishing shop not far away from White Hart Lane, so I went there with Irving’s credit card and ordered all the best gear, plus new tracksuits for my mates.

  The transfer fee was £2.2 million, wh
ich was the most any British club had ever paid for a player, plus I got £100,000 as a signing-on fee. I gave £70,000 of it to me mam and dad to buy a house. I just splashed out, threw it around, thinking I’d lots of years left to make more.

  One of the things Irving Scholar promised me was that they would pay for me to stay in a hotel for as long as I liked. They booked me into a very nice hotel called West Lodge Park, near Hadley Wood. The England team used to stay there at one time, and traditionally it was a base for one of the FA Cup final teams before the big day at Wembley. Spurs used it all the time. Or at least they had done until I moved in.

  I’d also been promised that some of my friends could stay with me at West Lodge Park, to stop me from feeling homesick, settle me in, so I invited my Uncle Ian, my friends Cyril and Kikki and, of course, Jimmy Gardner to come and join me. On the night they arrived, we decided to order champagne to celebrate me signing for Spurs. I’d never had champagne before. We chose Dom Perignon, which seemed to be about the best, or at any rate the most expensive. It didn’t seem very strong – till I stood up to go to the toilet.

  After every bottle, it seemed a good idea for Jimmy to have a swim in the fish pond. Naked, of course – he didn’t want to get his clothes wet, did he? He wasn’t a pretty sight, but he attracted a large audience, judging by the number of complaints that reached Reception.

  The next night we thought we’d try the champagne again, as it seemed a very good vintage. In three days we got through thirty-eight bottles of Dom Perignon before the hotel threw us out. I was called to Irving Scholar’s office in the West End and we all trooped down there, where we had to line up like schoolboys to be told off. Irving was certainly cross with us, but I didn’t think he seemed too furious. And compared with his mood after we moved to the Hendon Hall Hotel, he wasn’t.

  I didn’t realise their piano was so valuable, or that my trick with the lighted cigarette, the tablecloth and the food was going to go wrong …

  We were then moved into the Swallow Hotel at Waltham Abbey, with some stern warnings about not mucking it up ringing in our ears. Many of Tottenham’s staff and players used the health club there and they didn’t want to be banned because of my behaviour. And I didn’t mess it up this time. I got on brilliantly with all the hotel staff. Whenever I got into a spot of bother, with the press or girls or whatever, I always knew I could retreat there and they’d look after me. I stayed at the Swallow for about six months and became so much part of the furniture that I used to sit in on interviews for new staff.

  There was just one bloke who wasn’t so fond of me. He was going out with a girl and they used to meet at the back of the hotel, where they thought they couldn’t be seen. We spotted him one day from my bedroom window, in a compromising position. His trousers round his ankles, basically. I couldn’t resist taking a pot at his bare arse with an air gun. What a shock he got. He was screaming and shouting. We, on the other hand, were pissing ourselves.

  The Sun somehow found out about this incident. I did a deal with Kelvin McKenzie, who was the editor at the time. I’d talk to him exclusively provided that he said that it was Jimmy who fired the shot and not me. I always liked Kelvin. He was a straight talker and you knew where you stood with him. I remember him once asking me if I’d had a fling with a girl. ‘It’s dead simple,’ he said. ‘All I want to know is whether or not you sank the sausage.’

  Having Chris Waddle at Spurs was a great help. When my mates all went back to Newcastle, I’d often go and stay with him and his wife Laura if I got fed up on my own in the hotel. I was also very friendly with Paul Moran and Paul Stewart, who signed for Spurs at the same time as me. I did get a bit homesick and often returned to the north-east.

  Jimmy drove me all over the place. He would come down to the training ground and wait for me to finish, or collect me after a match at White Hart Lane, then he’d drive me back up to Newcastle for the night, if we had the next day off, or for the weekend.

  His car broke down once, about halfway home. We decided to hitch-hike the rest of the way. A Mother’s Pride bakery van stopped to pick us up but we had to sit in the back, because the driver had no room for us at the front. After about two hours, we began to get hungry, really starving. Then it dawned on us that of course we were surrounded by loaves of bread. So we tucked in, tearing open the packets.

  When we got out, we paid the driver for the bread, making sure we took away the loaves we’d only half finished in case we got peckish again.

  I eventually bought my own house, at Dobbs Weir in Hertfordshire, which cost me £220,000. Gail came down from Newcastle and joined me there for a while, but it didn’t last. I got caught with another girl, and that was it. We split up and she went back to the north-east. My moving south and seeing the bright lights of London was what really brought it to an end. But I didn’t actually go on to have another regular girlfriend. I was really more interested in going out with the lads, drinking, living it up, having a good time with my mates. Gail and I had been going out for about six years, so it was a shame, I suppose. I gather she’s now happily married – and probably quite pleased she didn’t end up with me.

  I first turned out for Tottenham on their pre-season friendly tour in Sweden. As we ran on to the pitch for a game at Trelleborg, I patted the head of one of the pretty Swedish girls lined up to greet us. I honestly didn’t take in what she looked like, and could never have recognised her again, but she remembered me and when we got to the next stop on our tour there was a steaming love letter waiting for me, together with a very revealing photograph. We passed the photo round the bus and all had a good laugh. At our hotel, a bunch of red roses arrived for me, and then she started phoning and asking for me.

  Then she rang me in my room, saying that she was in the hotel, had booked into a room and wanted me to join her there. I made Waddler take all my calls after that, reckoning that one Geordie voice would sound very much like another to her. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I told Terry Venables what was happening: that I was being stalked. The hotel register was checked and there was no trace of this girl. The letters and phone calls suddenly stopped, so I decided it had all been a hoax and forgot all about it.

  But a few weeks later, a Sunday paper ran a piece claiming that I’d had a night of passion with this girl. Her photograph was in the paper. I still didn’t recognise her. I don’t know to this day whether she set the whole thing up herself or whether a newspaper had put her up to it. Either way, when it hadn’t worked, somebody – she or the paper – had decided to go ahead with it anyway.

  It was the first time anything like that had ever happened to me, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. I realised that I would have to be very careful from then on, constantly aware that girls making eyes at you are not always what they seem. It was a depressing prospect. It’s awful to feel you have to be suspicious of people until you know for sure that they are genuine.

  My first proper match for Spurs was a pre-season game against Arsenal in the Makita tournament, held at Wembley. I got plenty of stick from the Gunners, but when we were beaten 4–0, the Spurs fans booed as well. I could hear them chanting: ‘What a waste of money.’ Chris Waddle told me not to take it to heart. He’d needed time to win the fans over, too.

  I hadn’t even got off on the right foot with all of my team-mates. In one training session, I went to the toilet and found myself standing beside Paul Moran. He later became a good mate but I didn’t know him yet, and he seemed very young. ‘Are you an apprentice?’ I asked him.

  ‘Are you fucking joking, mate?’ he retorted, and stormed out. I also had a bit of a ruck with Vinny Samways in training, when we grabbed each other, though it wasn’t serious. It was nothing really, just over a daft tackle, either I had made or he had made, can’t remember which of us now. It was in Norway, on our pre-season tour. You get these rucks in training. They flare up suddenly but don’t mean much. It shows that you’re taking the training seriously.

  My first league game fo
r Tottenham should have been at home against Coventry, but it was postponed as the new stand wasn’t ready. So as it turned out, my debut in a competitive match was at St James’ Park. It’s the sort of coincidence that always seems to happen in football.

  I hoped the Newcastle fans, particularly the Gallowgate End, would understand why I had left and go easy on me, but the best thing you could say about the reception I was given was that it was mixed. When I took a corner, someone threw a Mars bar at me. My usual response to this was to treat it as a joke, pick up the Mars bar and bite a chunk out of it. I did try, but on this occasion, whoever had thrown it must have had it in his freezer for months, because it was rock hard. I’ve spent enough money on my teeth over the years, so I was relieved not to break any of them on that frozen Mars bar.

  After drawing that match 2–2, we faced Arsenal at home. I lost a boot after a tackle from Paul Davis, when he accidentally stood on it. I still had one shoe on and one shoe off when Chris Waddle put the ball through to me, but I managed to steer the ball past John Lukic and into the net with my stockinged foot. That pleased the crowd. I think the Spurs fans took to me more after that.

  One thing I’d noticed about the Tottenham crowd was that they only got behind you if you were doing well. When you were not doing so well, there could be silence – or worse. At Newcastle, we could have been 5–0 down but the crowd would still be singing ‘We’ll support you ever more’. I also noticed that a large number of season ticket-holders in the West Stand always left well before the end. You could see the large gaps where they’d been sitting. You’d never get that at Newcastle.

  I was dead excited when I moved into my new house. It was great getting it all just as I wanted it. But as I was getting ready to leave for the game one Saturday morning, I found the bath taps weren’t working properly.