Gazza: My Story

by Paul Gascoigne

  I think we could have won Euro 96 – and we could have won Italy 90. England had a terrific team both times. One wasn’t better than the other. I thought those two England teams were excellent. The team spirit was brilliant each time and in Venables we had a world-class coach, very experienced, and so was Bobby Robson.

  Germany were the eventual winners of each competition and were no better than us. It was the luck of the penalty shoot-outs, that’s what ruined it for us.

  “I have been a big fan of Paul Gascoigne since he started playing for England in the late eighties. His skill level has always been impressive and he is an intelligent player. Gascoigne is one of the few world-class players around and he is also very much a character.”

  Franz Beckenbauer, on eve of Euro 96

  “Gazza is no longer a fat, drunken imbecile. He is, in fact, a football genius.”

  Mirror editorial headed ‘Mr Paul Gascoigne: An Apology’, after his solo goal against Scotland, 1996

  19

  MARITAL MADNESS

  At least I had something nice to look forward to after the disappointment of once again being knocked out of the semi-finals of an international tournament by Germany: my wedding to Sheryl, and our honeymoon.

  We’d decided to get married after Shel and the children moved up to Scotland and we were all happy at last. Why did I decide to get married? Because I loved her. That’s enough of a reason, isn’t it? I always have loved her, despite everything. I promised to be good from then onwards, on my best behaviour. And she believed me. I believed myself.

  The marriage took place on 1 July. We hadn’t been able to have it any earlier because we’d thought I’d be otherwise engaged in the Euro 96 final. Some hope. I was offered £150,000 by Hello! magazine for the exclusive rights to cover our wedding, so I accepted it. I spent the whole lot on the wedding – the clothes, food and drink, the honeymoon. Many of the England team came: David Seaman, Ian Wright, Chris Waddle and Paul Ince, and friends like Chris Evans and Danny Baker. Chris had said he’d be the DJ, but he got drunk and forgot about it.

  It was a great day. Euro 96, and the season, were over, so we could all relax and enjoy ourselves. The reception was held at Hanbury Manor near Ware in Hertfordshire, a very posh Jacobean-style mansion set in huge grounds. We had the full treatment; the best of everything.

  We set off for our honeymoon in Maui, Hawaii – somewhere I’d always wanted to go – on a real high. But the best part of it was the flight there. After that, for the whole of the holiday, we argued all the time. Don’t ask me why, we just did. I was pleased to get home.

  Back in Scotland, we settled down for a while, friends again. We were a proper little family, Mum and Dad and three kids. Shel made our house in Renfrewshire very attractive. I later bought a lodge on Loch Lomond as well, for weekends and holidays for us and the bairns.

  Everything was rosy – till I began to turn into a bastard again. Oh, for various reasons, most of them stupid. Sometimes I think I don’t know how to be good. That next season, my second at Rangers, was not as great as the first. The other teams knew more about me, so I was marked man-to-man, and I was also drinking quite heavily, because of all my problems returning.

  Walter discovered I’d been on the shandies the night before a game, and, in the dressing room, he ordered me to put on my suit and leave, which I did. I went straight through the gates and drove home. Some of the fans saw me and wondered what was going on. Why was I leaving just as they were arriving? Luckily, the lads won. If they had lost, it would have been worse for me, I would have felt responsible for the defeat.

  I was starting to let Walter and assistant manager Archie Knox down on a regular basis. I would promise not to go drinking and break my promise. One Friday night I was sitting in my lodge on Loch Lomond when the phone went. It was Walter. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I thought he was just checking up on me, making sure I was at home resting, as I was supposed to be.

  ‘Right, if you’re doing nothing, we’ll pick you up in ten minutes.’

  He and Archie appeared and took me to a Chinese restaurant with their wives. They offered me red wine, so I had a glass. ‘You’ve failed the test,’ they said, ‘but don’t worry, you’ll play better tomorrow.’ We won 5–0 against Motherwell, and I scored a hat-trick.

  But I was drinking a lot. During one game, I had a row with Ally McCoist, so at half-time I had a brandy. In the second half I scored two goals and we won. I could see Walter and Archie in the dugout, shaking their heads in disbelief. I realise now that they were trying everything they could to help me, stop me being stupid. But they didn’t know which way worked best, the carrot or the stick.

  I came to training drunk one day after I’d been out boozing the night before. When Walter realised, he came across, picked me up by the scruff of the neck and said, ‘Get out, go home, and never come back.’ But that wasn’t the first time it had happened.

  All the rows and fights with Shel made everything worse. It just seemed to go on and on. We were fine one minute, at each other’s throats the next, she’d leave, or I’d leave, then whoever had left would come back. The drink relaxed me and dulled the stress.

  In October 1996, as we were preparing to play Ajax in the Champions League, I took Shel and the kids to Gleneagles for a bit of a break. We had good fun. I took the kids swimming and we played with these amazing hawks. But later, over dinner in the hotel, we started arguing. It was partly about my family, and it was mainly my fault. I was mixing my drinks, champagne on top of whisky, which was stupid. The whole dining room could hear us. In the end, Shel left the table and went back to our room. I followed her and attacked her. I headbutted her and threw her to the floor. Her finger was broken, so she was screaming in agony. I tried to click the finger back into place, and that made her really shriek.

  Bianca and Mason, aged about ten and seven, were in the next room with the nanny, listening to it all. I found out later that Bianca was so upset she wanted to take a kettle of boiling water and come and pour it all over me. Fortunately, the nanny calmed her down.

  The next day, Shel took the kids and left, telling me she wasn’t coming back. I did nothing to stop her. I just accepted it. And yes, I had pushed her around a bit before, but nothing as bad as this. What I had done the previous night was terrible, and at the time I didn’t even say sorry. I knew I’d done wrong, but I couldn’t bring myself to apologise.

  The day after that, I flew off with Rangers for the Ajax match. I was in a dreadful state, worked up, wracked with guilt, but just not able to say sorry. I was played up front. After ten minutes, I was sent off.

  At half-time in the dressing room, Richard Gough, our captain, lashed out at me. He was mad with me for getting myself sent off so early in the game. I told him I was in a terrible state. I’d beaten up my wife and by now I knew that the press had found out and were waiting for me, and that they’d really tear me apart. Which they did, quite rightly.

  Perhaps I had done a bit more in the past than just pushing her. I had twisted her arm once and yeah, there was the time I banged her head on the floor in Italy. I don’t know what happens, except that when I get in a state, I take it out on the one I love most. But I paid dearly because it all came out and Shel and I separated, and I lost my wife.

  One thing that really upset her was a story going around that the argument had started because she had been attacking my family and that I’d flipped because I love them so much. It was true that we had been arguing about my family, but Shel hadn’t been criticising them. She knew how much I loved them, and that I would never say anything against my mother and father, or allow anyone else to do so.

  I’ve always defended them, always loved them, even when I quarrelled with them when I was young, even when my mother gave me a right hiding. I love them because they worked desperately hard, especially my mam, to bring me up. They had things tough, and they had terrible rows themselves, but I will have nothing said
against them. I know some people think that my family background is a cause of many of my problems, but I don’t agree. I love me mam and dad, and I always will. I used to say I hoped I’d die before they do, and I meant that. I still do. I don’t want to be in this life without them.

  I should have had counselling. Years ago, when I was young, I had had my first chance to get help, but I didn’t go back. During my marriage to Shel, after some of our bigger rows and my worst behaviour, she had persuaded me to go to marriage guidance counselling. I only stood it for a short while and gave up quickly, but Shel stuck at it longer.

  After the beating-up, I felt numb inside. I began to take Zimovane tablets, which I stole from Rangers after I found out where they were kept. I had had morphine several times over the years, before my operations, when I was in terrible pain, so I knew how it made you feel good and deadened the agony.

  Neither Walter nor Archie Knox knew about the stolen pills. Walter was always the best counsellor I ever had. He took such time and trouble with me, put up with so much. I can never be grateful enough for what he did for me. Not long ago, I admitted to him that when I was at Rangers I had stolen those tablets. ‘Ya wee bastard,’ he said. ‘If I’d known that at the time, you would have been straight out of the club.’

  It was lucky for me, especially at this time with Rangers, when I was feeling so depressed, that I never got mixed up with any real drugs, I mean hard drugs. I did have a joint once, at a wedding, which someone gave me. I puffed away at it till I fell on the floor, laughing, but when the effect wore off, I was really scared. I vowed never to try a joint again, and I never have done. One of the things that put me off cannabis when I was young, and just starting out as a professional, was someone telling me that it could be detected in your body up to twenty-eight days after you’d smoked a joint. I didn’t want to fail a random drugs test and then get banned from football, which was what I lived for. Drinking was different. I didn’t start all that till quite late anyway, but I always felt that I could sweat alcohol off. Besides, it’s not illegal.

  Until I had that joint, which wasn’t till I was at Rangers, I’d never been a smoker. Afterwards, I kept off joints but took up cigarettes. That was a bad mistake. I’m still smoking today, though I tell myself all the time I will give up. But I also tell myself that at least it’s better than cannabis.

  After the incident with Shel, everywhere I went, on the pitch or off it, rival fans would shout ‘wife-beater’ at me. During that second season with Rangers, 1996–7, I also got another leg injury and was out for three months. People were saying I shouldn’t be picked for Rangers or England any more as I was a wife-beater. Offers were coming in for me, so it was reported, from places like Aston Villa – even Spurs were rumoured to want me back – because it was thought Rangers might want to get rid of me.

  But we had a great run in the middle of the season, with seven wins in a row, and I was back on good form. Despite everything, I still managed thirty-four games, scoring seventeen goals. We ended up winning the league again, and the League Cup as well this time – another Double. In the League Cup final against Hearts I scored two goals. So, as far as the diehard Rangers fans were concerned, I was a hero again.

  “If he were ordinary, he would play ordinary football. Paul Gascoigne is an extraordinary footballer – it is hardly surprising then that he is an extraordinary man.”

  Simon Barnes, The Times, 20 May 1998

  “I don’t want to be rude, but I think when God gave him this enormous footballing talent, he took his brain out at the same time to sort of equalise it a bit.”

  Tony Banks, Minister for Sport, on BBC Radio 5 Live, 1997

  “Gazza was never truly the Great which his talent argued he ought to have become. There is immense sadness about Gascoigne’s failure to master the demon drink. It is sad for all the football men who knew him to be brushed with rare brilliance as well as that incurable daftness.”

  Jeff Powell, Daily Mail, 2 December 1999

  20

  IRA DEATH THREAT

  During my three seasons at Rangers, Walter Smith sacked me at least three times. I tried his patience so often. I remember rabbiting on in his team talk once, not paying much attention, and he got so mad with me he picked me up by the neck. I was wearing one of my daft suits, a brand new Armani outfit in some garish colour. I don’t think he actually sacked me that time, but he was well pissed off.

  One occasion when he did give me the bullet was that day he sent me home just before kick-off, when he discovered I’d been drinking the night before a vital match. He shouted after me that I’d never play for Rangers again. And he kicked me out again for arriving at training half-cut. He threw my boots at me and said, ‘That’s it. Piss off and never come back, ever again.’

  I was very upset that time. I thought that was it, I really was out. I stayed indoors at Loch Lomond for three days, and then one of my team-mates, Alan McLaren, came to see me. Alan told me Walter wanted me to ring him, so I did. Walter said: ‘I’ll tell you when you can have a drink, and when you can’t have a drink. I’m the manager.’ Then he got me picked up and we flew to Glasgow in a helicopter. We hovered over the Rangers ground, just to take in the wonder of it all.

  Archie Knox once came to my house to see me the night before a match. We sat drinking and talking till the early hours and I was thinking, what’s going on? What’s he going to tell me? But, fuck me, he was still there an hour later, still rabbiting on. ‘I bet you wish I’d go soon,’ he said.

  ‘No, no problems,’ I told him. ‘I like having you here.’

  Which I did. And yet I was the one who would have been fined or sacked by Walter for drinking the night before a game.

  When he finally left, he said, ‘Sleep well,’ and I thought, no fucking chance now. I only got about an hour. Next day, he never mentioned it, as if he had no memory of coming to see me. I didn’t mention it, either. Anyway, we won that game 3–1. Managers have strange ways of getting the best out of you.

  My third season with Rangers began well. At the end of the previous one, Walter had signed a new three-year contract. He’d also bought some very good new foreign players, like Marco Negri and Lorenzo Amoruso. Amoruso got injured before the season properly began, but Negri started off brilliantly, scoring an amazing twenty-three goals in his first ten games for Rangers. But then they seemed to dry up: in the whole of the rest of that season he managed only another nine league goals.

  Now that Shel had moved out, I spent a lot of my time off in London with Chris Evans and Danny Baker. I’d appeared on some of Chris’s television programmes and, as I said, I’d met Danny when he worked on one of my videos, and the three of us had become good drinking mates and had a lot of laughs.

  Sometimes they came up to see me in Scotland, too. Chris and I set off from near Glasgow one day to drive the twenty or so miles to my timeshare lodge at Loch Lomond. Later, we were due to meet some of the players, along with Jimmy Gardner, at a restaurant on the loch.

  We left my house in Renfrewshire in a brand-new Mercedes I’d just bought and Chris was saying what a flash car it was. ‘But then, you’re a flash git,’ he added. I replied that so was he.

  ‘Who would ever know we were both brought up in council houses with nothing?’ I said. That gave us the bright idea of getting rid of the Merc and driving something beat-up instead. I flashed my lights at the car in front of us. It stopped, and a couple got out.

  ‘Do you know where Loch Lomond is?’ I asked them.

  They said they did.

  ‘If I give you my keys, could one of you drive my car there?’

  If I’d been anyone else, I’m sure they would have been bloody suspicious, but they had recognised me, and they just thought it was funny. I didn’t offer them any money or anything, but they agreed to take my car. So Chris and I got out of my new Merc, gave them the keys, and let the bloke drive it away while the woman followed in their car.

  ‘What if I never see my new Merc again?’ I yell
ed after them.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Chris. ‘I’ll buy you another one.’

  We found a garage and Chris bought an old banger for £300. We then bought some paint, and painted the windows black. Along the side of the car, Chris wrote the letters ‘TFI’, after his TV show.

  We drove this heap on to Loch Lomond and made our way to the restaurant, which was on a sort of marina beside the loch. We could see the diners in the restaurant looking at our old banger approaching. As they watched, Chris drove straight on. And on, and on, and into the loch. When the water reached our waists, we got out and swam to the shore. By this time Jimmy had realised it was us and was standing on the balcony, pissing himself.

  That incident didn’t make the press, but a lot did, and they made me look far worse than I was. Newspaper readers must have thought I was permanently drunk.

  Jimmy was rather less amused when I rang Chris Evans’ radio programme once to say I was worried about him as he had decided at last to come out of the closet, but the trouble was, he didn’t have any gay friends in Gateshead. He was lonely and needed to meet some gay people. I gave out his mobile phone number on the radio, appealing for any gay people out there to ring Jimmy. Hundreds of them did. For weeks afterwards, I could hear Jimmy picking up his mobile and shouting: ‘I’M NOT FUCKING GAY!’

  Walter Smith gave me a week off once and allowed me to go to London, on condition that I stayed out of the papers. So I went to stay with Chris Evans and Danny Baker, which probably wasn’t the best way of keeping a low profile.

  On the first evening, I said I felt like doing something daft. I suggested we went into town. So we got into Chris’s chauffeur-driven Bentley and drove into the West End. Near Marble Arch, we stopped in front of a double-decker bus, forcing the bus to stop as well. I got out, climbed in beside the bus driver and persuaded him to let me take the wheel. I got the whole bus singing ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday’.