So I rang Jimmy in Newcastle and told him to fly out at once: I wanted him to come and pick up my medal from the Pope, take it back and put it safely in the bank. Of course, he didn’t believe me. He thought it was one of my stunts. ‘It’s true,’ I insisted. ‘Come quick. I’ll get someone to arrange everything for you, the flights and that. All you have to do is get down to Newcastle Airport and pick up the tickets.’
I sorted it all, just as I’d promised – although when he got to the airport, he discovered he had to fly first to Heathrow, and then on to Copenhagen, Lisbon, Paris, all sorts, all over. He didn’t know where he was ending up next till he picked up each ticket. It took him about two days. All first-class tickets, mind. But he did have to spend one night sleeping in an airport lounge because he’d run out of money, having left thinking he would be with me in a couple of hours. That was to teach him not to disbelieve me.
He did arrive in the end, and took the medal back to the bank, where it still is today, along with a few other bits of jewellery and medals and things I’ve picked up over the years.
I enjoyed that trick with the flights so much that I pulled it again later, with my brother. This time I was a bit more ambitious: when he got to the airport he found out that his first flight took him to Cambodia …
The referees were good to me in Italy. I talked to them all the time, and they didn’t really mind that – except once, when I’d been giving him a lot of chat, a ref said, ‘Here, take this.’ It was a piece of chewing gum. ‘Eat that,’ he said, ‘and shut up.’
I remember saying to another ref, when I was feeling knackered, ‘I’m done for, ref. You take over, you’ll do better than me.’
‘Will you referee?’ he asked me.
‘No chance. I haven’t got the energy to blow the whistle …’
I was substituted not long afterwards.
The Italian football paper, Gazetta dello Sport, did a survey of the players by polling the referees. They all said I was no problem: always gentlemanly, never underhand or nasty. So that was nice. In one game, when I was performing very well, the ref said I was playing like a champion. I told him he was the best referee in the world.
I was sent off once, against Genoa, the team we had played on my league debut in Italy when that bloke Bortolazzi had nearly taken my leg off. In the same fixture the following season, I reacted badly in a clash with the same player, and I got a red card.
Before leaving the field, I smiled and shook hands with the ref and some of the players on each side, and went off to an ovation. I think it was behaving so well that kept my punishment to a one-match suspension. Sometimes it pays to make people smile.
“He’s a fat, ill-mannered Geordie who has urinated a glorious Godgiven talent against numerous walls. He bites every hand that seeks to restrain him and abuses those who would save him from himself. Not since the death of Princess Diana has a tragic figure so dominated the airwaves.”
Ian Wooldridge, Daily Mail, 3 June 1998
“He is under more media pressure than anyone in England except Princess Di. It can be argued that both of them have suffered from bad advice.”
Peter Barnard, The Times, 27 August 1994
“You have taken a place in our hearts, and we will always love you. Nobody is as great as you. Always by your side.”
Amarando Sestili, Lazio fan club secretary, in a letter to Paul, 3 March 1992
16
ARRIVEDERCI ROMA
After the 1990 World Cup, when Bobby Robson left for PSV Eindhoven, Graham Taylor had taken over the England management. I played for him against Hungary that September and in the European Championship qualifier against Poland. We won both matches and I thought I did well, but then, although I was fit and available and not injured, he dropped me for the Ireland match in November, picking Gordon Cowans instead. It was the first time I’d been left out since I’d made the England squad, and I was devastated. Graham never really explained to me why. He told the press it was for ‘tactical reasons’. All he said to me was that I wasn’t in the right state to play, which really pissed me off. Obviously the public didn’t agree with him, because it was the following month that I was voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The Ireland match ended in a 1–1 draw, and I was picked for the next fixture, with Cameroon at Wembley, in February 1991. We won that game 2–0, and I earned my twentieth cap, but after that came my hernia operation and my FA Cup final injury, and I was out of football altogether for about eighteen months. As well as delaying my move to Italy, all that meant I missed twenty-one possible England games, including the 1992 European Championship finals in Sweden. England crashed out of that tournament, finishing bottom of their group. They didn’t win a single game. I’m not saying there was any connection between my absence and their poor performance. Me mam said so, of course, and me father. And Jimmy, and all the Gascoigne clan …
When I eventually recovered and joined Lazio, Graham Taylor came out to Italy to see me, to check I was fit again, and I was selected for the World Cup qualifier against Norway at Wembley in October 1992.
Two nights before the game, in the England hotel, I had a few drinks with Paul Merson. I wasn’t drunk – I only had four bottles of Budweiser – but Paul was on the brandy, put away loads of it. I hadn’t realised it all went on my bill. Of course, when Graham Taylor found out, he thought all the drinks had been for me.
Without telling me what he was going to say, he revealed at a press conference that I had problems because of my ‘refuelling’ habits. If he was going to say such a thing, he should have taken me aside first and warned me, not just come out with it like that in public.
Even so, I can’t say I would have explained what really happened. I never told him the truth, so he probably won’t know it until he reads it here. As everyone is now aware, Paul had serious problems, and at the time he was in a very bad state. The press were hounding him, and I was just trying to protect him from even worse publicity. But I lost respect for Graham Taylor after that.
At Wembley before the match, I was grabbed by a Norwegian TV crew and asked if I’d say a few words to Norway. So I did. I said, ‘Fuck off, Norway.’ It was quite obviously a joke. I was grinning like mad as I said it, and I immediately added that I was just being funny and asked them what else they would like me to say, but I could see they had taken the ‘fuck off, Norway’ seriously. Lawrie McMenemy, the England assistant manager, tried to laugh it off as well, and to persuade the TV people not to use that bit of footage, but they did. And after that I got hate mail from Norway for months.
The game ended in a 1–1 draw. The next month we had another World Cup qualifier, against Turkey. We beat them 4–0 and I scored twice.
Graham Taylor did usually pick me, but I never agreed with his tactics. He was a devotee of the long ball, the big whack up from defence to the forwards, whereas I believe in passing the ball. That’s how football should be played. I think most of the players agreed with me, but Graham was the manager so we had to try and do what he wanted, which made for some dull games and some bad performances, such as the vital World Cup qualifier, against Norway again, in June 1993.
At half-time, I was going mad, screaming and shouting in the dressing room, raving that this was not the way to play football. I was having a go at everyone, even telling David Platt to pull his finger out. I didn’t have a go at Graham Taylor directly, but he was in no doubt who it was I was unhappy with. Instead I lashed out at Lawrie McMenemy, his right-hand man. We ended up getting beaten 2–0.
About the only bright spot in Graham Taylor’s reign was having Steve Harrison as coach. I didn’t really know much about him when he first came – like Graham, he had been at Watford. He was a great prankster. In the run-up to one England game, the whole squad went into the West End for a night out. We did some go-karting, and then we went to the theatre and saw the Buddy Holly musical, which was brilliant. Afterwards, we had dinner in a hotel. During the meal, this scruffy tramp came up to me,
begging for money, his teeth all black, really stinking. I was a bit taken aback, wondering how the hell he’d got in. It turned out to be Steve Harrison, winding me up. He really got me there.
We had a karaoke competition after dinner. While Des Walker was giving us his version of ‘Singing in the Rain’ I poured a pint of lager over his head. That was pretty normal behaviour for me; Steve’s tricks were often much better. One evening, at a team dinner, he burst into the room wearing a dirty mac. When he opened it, he was naked, except for a rubber chicken tied round his waist. Nobody could work out what the point was, but I got the joke: there was no point. I liked that kind of joke. He also played similar tricks to mine. He’d lead us on training runs round a circuit, then suddenly carry straight on, right into some bushes. He was a canny lad.
One thing that could be said for Graham Taylor was that he was good on team togetherness. He organised lots of outings and events, which I always think really helps to boost morale and team spirit.
In 1994, I got another really bad injury, a broken leg, and once again I was out for about a year. I missed fifteen months of England games. The only small consolation was that I didn’t miss out going to the 1994 World Cup, because, of course, England didn’t get there. And by that time, Graham Taylor had got the push.
This disaster struck at the end of my second season in Italy, 1993–4. Things had been going well, too. I got the Man of the Match award in January 1994 against Sampdoria, even though we were beaten and I had had to come off with a rib injury. They gave me a huge injection to keep me going for the next game, and I had a run of six consecutive matches, the longest I’d managed since I was at Tottenham, where in 1990 I played nineteen on the trot.
Against Cremonese, whom we beat 4–2, our captain in that match, Roberto Cravero, had to go off and I was given the captain’s arm band for the first time in my professional career. I hadn’t captained a team since I’d led Newcastle Youth to their Cup final victory.
Although the Italian press still didn’t like me, it seemed the public still did. The Panini stickers people, who produce those little photos of footballers for people to collect, issued a voting slip with each packet sold in Italy, and I came out as their top player, beating Roberto Baggio and Franco Baresi.
So this new injury came at a really unfortunate time, when I was riding high. It happened in April 1994, on a day we were expecting to be a day off. Instead we were all told we had to come in and train, so I was pissed off. We were having an indoor game, which I was treating as just a bit of a kick-about, but when I made a mistake which gave away a goal, my side screamed at me. I hadn’t realised they were taking it so seriously. Right, I thought, if they want a proper game, I’ll give them one, and I went to tackle Alessandro Nesta, very, very hard. He was OK, but I went down in a heap. I just lay there, numb. I knew straight away that something was seriously wrong. The doc rushed over but I said, ‘Leave it, leave it,’ and began to feel my knee. There was a hole there about five inches in diameter.
I’d broken my leg. When they picked me up and carried me out, I was screaming in agony. I was taken to a hospital in Rome, but I persuaded them to let me have the op I needed in London, so that Mr Browett could do it, as he’d fixed my leg before. This time I had a double fracture of the tibia and fibula. I was put on a plane, all plastered and bandaged up, surrounded by photographers trying to take pictures of me. I went to the Princess Grace Hospital, which had become my second home. My first home was of course the Queen Elizabeth in Gateshead, but I’d got a season ticket at a new place now.
The Lazio fans gave Nesta dog’s abuse for what had happened. They were convinced he must have been to blame, as he was known as a hard tackler. They loved me so much that one or two of them even sent him death threats. But it had all been my own fault.
I worked my bollocks off after the op to get back to fitness, doing exercises three times a day when I was only supposed to do them once. I think that made it my fifteenth operation. Feel free to check my chart.
I hated being injured, as all players do. I threw myself into getting fit again, doing everything I was told and more, but I got very low, and then I’d start taking pep pills or drinking or stuffing my face to try to comfort myself. I was out for practically a whole season. So, of my three seasons at Lazio, 1992–5, I only really played for two. In that time, I made forty-seven appearances and scored six goals. Not a lot, really. It was all a crying shame.
Things got even harder when Dino Zoff left Lazio and Zdenek Zeman took over as manager. He was a very tough Czech. Tough on all the players, not just me. He was a right bastard in training, making us work like dogs. Signori, our regular captain, complained to him that he was knackering us all, and it was too much. Zeman said, ‘I’m not packing my bags and going, I’m staying, so you’ll have to put up with it.’
Zeman informed me I was two stone overweight and he got me exercising on these bikes. When I’d done what he’d told me to do on the bikes, I was supposed to do a two-mile run, but once I did the equivalent on one of the bikes instead. He said: ‘Get off the bike and do the run on your feet.’ I was so angry I picked up five bikes and threw them down the stairs at the training ground. They didn’t hit anyone, but they were ruined. The bikes cost about £300 each, and I had to pay for them.
The club doctor moaned on about my weight, saying I was only 50 per cent fit and couldn’t manage two consecutive games because I hadn’t got the strength. It was one thing to be told this in private, but the club let it out in the press, the bastards.
When I was fit, I wanted to play every game, but Lazio insisted on resting me for some of them, even though I was fine, in case I was injured again. They wanted to keep me safe, I understood that. But I always wanted to play.
But I have to say that I enjoyed Italy. I loved the football and never felt out of my depth. In fact, I felt I was a better player than most of them. I loved Lazio – the players, the club, Rome, the fans, the Italian way of life, everything. In the end I picked up quite a bit of Italian, enough for me to talk to Italian waiters whenever I meet them now. Or swear at them. And the lobsters were great.
The first New Year’s Eve I was in Rome I went to this posh restaurant with Shel and ordered lobster because I’d seen they had a huge lobster tank. I pointed to the one I wanted and they went off to get it. They were taking so long I thought, what are they doing messing about? I’ll get it myself. So I dived into the tank. I had on my best suit. The water was freezing cold and very salty. It took me a while, diving and swimming around, to catch the one I fancied. When I did, I hooked it out and said, ‘There’s the fucker I want.’ Then I ate it sitting in me dripping suit.
I managed to see quite a bit of Rome without getting wet. I went to the Colosseum and did the historic sites. People think footballers have no idea where they are in the world, and care less. But because of Johnny and Augusto, I learned something about the country I was living in. They took me around and showed me places and told me about Italian history. It was quite interesting, actually.
I planted a tree while I was there, for the unification of Europe. Don’t ask me what all that was about. I got this invitation from the British government, asking me to take part in a tree-planting ceremony, and I sent my reply to the prime minister, John Major. ‘Dear John,’ I wrote, which people thought was a bit cheeky of me, as I’d never met him, and he was, after all, the prime minister of my country. I said I would be delighted to help with the tree-planting, and invited him to come and watch me play for Lazio in a forthcoming friendly against Spurs at White Hart Lane. ‘It will be a change from watching Mellor perform in a Chelsea strip,’ I added.
I got a letter back about three weeks later. He called me ‘Dear Paul’ but said he was sorry, he had another engagement and couldn’t make the match. In his own handwriting at the end, he added, ‘Welcome back to the England team.’ I was very pleased with that.
One of the things I enjoyed in Italy was the training. We did about twice as much as at Newc
astle or Spurs, with an afternoon session as well as a morning one. But that didn’t bother me. I liked it. Preferred it. I’ve always loved training.
With Zoff, the training was always fun, and we played a lot of football or worked on skills. It wasn’t quite so much fun with Zeman. He put fitness before football, so I wasn’t as keen on that. The hardest time I ever had was when they were getting me to lose the two stones. For 75 days, I did 35 miles a day on a bike and 8 miles a day running. That was truly knackering. But it worked. I got my weight down.
Italians are more dedicated and professional than we are, especially on things like diet. Players would worry if they had a Coca-Cola, in case it had a bad effect on them. And none of them drank, not like I call drinking, or British players call drinking. They’d have one glass of wine with their pre-match meal, and that was it. No drinking at all after a game. No going out getting pissed.
I didn’t go out a lot with the players anyway, not socially. I got on with them all, liked them all, and I like to think they liked me, but I didn’t socialise with them. I usually had Jimmy and Cyril or my dad staying with me. I preferred to be with them in the evening.
I didn’t actually do a lot of drinking in Italy, not really, not compared with later. I suppose I picked up a bit of their healthy lifestyle. Italy did do me good – made me a better player and a better person. Made me determined to be the best player in the world.
I never made friends with the Italian press after that belching incident, and all my injuries buggered up a lot of my time at Lazio, but the Lazio fans never turned against me. So all in all, I have very fond memories of Italy and no regrets about moving to Lazio.
Gazza: My Story Page 15