Gazza: My Story

by Paul Gascoigne

  I eventually moved from the hotel into a big, six-bedroomed mansion at Seaham, on the coast, along with Jimmy. My team-mate Andy Townsend moved in as well. We didn’t have any staff and that, we just looked after worselves. And no, we didn’t wreck anything.

  I had already bought my parents the house of their dreams in Dunston, best part, of course, which cost about £120,000. Then I bought a house each for my two sisters and my brother, all in the same area – in fact two were in the same street. Keep it nice and cosy.

  I gave them cars as well. I bought a Rolls-Royce, which I gave to me dad. He put on his personalised number plate – JG 369 – which he’d had on the new Jaguar. It wasn’t a brand-new model, but only a few years old, a Silver Sprite, and me dad, the daft sod, drove it to the dole office when he went to pick up his money and left it parked outside, for all to see. No wonder he got his dole money stopped. He had remained unemployed ever since he collapsed and nearly died when I was young, but he wasn’t ill all the time. He was usually fit enough to hold up a pint or two, smoke a few ciggies, kiss a few lasses and come and see me in London, Italy and Glasgow. I wanted him to enjoy himself, after what he’d been through.

  He’d had another dodgy time when his eyesight started to go. They said he had varicose veins in his head – at least, that’s what I was told – or it could even be a brain tumour. He had to have an emergency operation, and it was life or death. I was terrified he was going to die. As he went under for the op, I promised I would get him a brand-new Range Rover if he recovered.

  When I heard he was OK, while he was still in hospital, I went out, traded in his Rolls and bought him a top-of-the-range Range Rover. But I forgot all about his personalised number plate. I didn’t save it, or get anything extra for it, when I sold his old car. He tells me all the time it’s now worth £10,000, and I let it go for nothing.

  Another time I went to see my dad and he told me he’d bought this new boat. He said it was a smasher, a right belter. I asked him how much it was worth and he said £8,000. I said I’d give him £5,000 for it. He told me he didn’t really want to sell it, as it was so brilliant for going out deep-water fishing, but in the end he said, ‘Oh, all right then, as it’s you.’ But he insisted I had to give him the cheque there and then. And he wouldn’t let me have the boat, or tell me where it was, until the cheque had cleared. So I gave him the cheque – and he rushed straight off to the bank.

  The first time I saw the boat I went with my mates Cyril, Vinny and Hazy and a few others to watch it arrive at Whitley Bay. They saw it before I did, this little orange tub, and were pissing themselves laughing. I said, ‘That’s not it. My dad told me it was a belter, perfect for deep-sea fishing.’ Of course, it did turn out to be the fucking little orange tub. One of the lads got on the dock tannoy and announced for everyone to hear: ‘Class boat now coming into the harbour.’ The first time I took it out to sea, the steering wheel fell off. It was hardly worth a packet of fish and chips, let alone £5,000. In the end, I gave it away.

  Just after I joined Boro, in 1998, my parents split up for good. They’d had rows in the past, and had separated before, and me dad had lived away for various spells, but now they decided, finally, to get divorced. I suppose they got on each other’s nerves so much that in the end they couldn’t stand it any longer. Me dad’s a good-looking man and there had always been girls hanging round him, but in the past me mam had been able to just laugh it off. They both enjoyed life and I always thought they enjoyed being with each other, despite everything. So I was very upset about the divorce. But one good thing is that at least they’re still pals.

  As if that wasn’t enough, stories reached me that not only Anna and her husband, John-Paul, but also Lindsay and her husband, Tim, were going through difficulties in their marriages. I invited them all to have a pub lunch with me in Dunston, worried about what I was hearing. I knew from my own experience how emotionally destructive marital strife can be, and I wanted to help my sisters.

  I invited John-Paul and Tim to the toilet, and locked the door. I said, ‘What the fuck is going on? I’m not unlocking this door until you promise to try harder. If I find out you haven’t, I’m going to smash both of yous.’ They promised, of course, so I let them out.

  Next I invited my sisters into the toilet – the same one, the men’s. I said to them: ‘You’ve got two weeks to get things sorted. And if not I want yous divorced.’

  In the end, they both got divorced, like my mam and dad. And me. I paid for all their divorces, all the legal fees. Around the same time, Carl got married, and I paid for his wedding as well. I don’t know why they chose to make that reality TV show about the Osbournes. I think the Gascoignes would have made much better television.

  When my parents split up, they sold the big house I’d bought for them, divided the money between them and bought another house each, a bit smaller, round the corner from each other. Me mam recently moved even nearer to me dad, into the same street, in fact only a couple of doors away. I’m not sure if he’s too thrilled by me mam being as close as that, and able to see everything he does. Apart from Anna, who lives a few streets away, they are in the same street now – Carl, me mam and me dad. Lindsay’s just round the corner. They all get on fine. Mam still goes round to me dad’s and makes the odd Sunday lunch for him. One of the things that has given me greatest pleasure in my life is having been able to provide nice homes for everyone in my family.

  My own divorce came through later, in August 1998. I was heartbroken, even though I knew it was coming. I hadn’t got married to get divorced. I’d thought it would last, despite everything; despite the horrible things I’d done. I sold the house in Renfrewshire and made a big settlement on Shel. I also agreed to generous regular maintenance payments, for her and all three kids. As I’ve said, I had always looked on Bianca and Mason as my own, and my responsibility, so I didn’t moan or fight it.

  At the end of the year, I then did something really daft. As a Christmas present, I gave Shel my timeshare lodge, the one on Loch Lomond. From then on I had no home or place to live of my own. I was staying either in rented houses or flats or in hotels.

  But at least I was settled at my new club. That summer of 1998, Boro had got the promotion we were so desperate to achieve and, best of all, I had the World Cup of 1998 in France to look forward to.

  “I am sure he will give me a bit of grief from time to time, but it will be worth it. Paul takes a few pints now and again, but he is one of the hardest trainers I have worked with.”

  Bryan Robson, manager of Middlesbrough, Daily Mail, March 1998

  “There is a wildness about Gascoigne. On Monday, he was talking about his life’s ambition to be picked up by UFOs. I have a suspicion he already has been without knowing it for he is not really like the rest of us Earthmen.”

  Simon Barnes, The Times, 20 May 1998

  “At his peak, Gazza was phenomenal, the best player I’ve seen in this country. Becks is a great player but he isn’t fit to lace Gazza’s boots.”

  Paul Merson, 1999

  22

  WORLD CUP 98 AND TROUBLE WITH HODDLE

  I was sick when Terry Venables parted company with England after Euro 96. Not just because he was my friend, and I admired him so much as a manager – the best in football, in my view – but because the whole thing was so unfair. All because he had business problems. What the hell did that have to do with his football work? He never mentioned any of his business ventures to us, never let us down at any time, for any event, and he wasn’t neglecting his England duties. We knew nothing about his life outside the England camp. These days, players have many business interests, which can take up a lot of their time, but they don’t get into trouble with England or their clubs if these go wrong, which some of them are bound to do. I don’t see that it matters. All that matters is what happens on the pitch, and whether they are doing their job properly.

  I was a bit worried when I heard that Glenn Hoddle had got the job. He was a legend, of course
, but I’d never played alongside him – he’d recently left Spurs when I arrived – although I’d played against him when I was a youngster starting out at Newcastle. When he took over the England job in 1996, Walter Smith said to me, ‘Be careful – Hoddle will want to make a name for himself.’ I didn’t know at the time what he meant by that. It would be two years before I understood.

  I had no real complaints about Hoddle as he picked me regularly, as long as I was fit and well and playing OK. But there were irritating elements to his management. In England training sessions, I didn’t like the way he told us how to do stretches. As professionals, we had all done stretching exercises for years and had long since worked out what suited our individual bodies best. Hoddle always thought he knew much better than anyone else. But of course, you do what he says – he’s the manager. And his sidekick, John Gorman, I suspect, reported back any little bit of gossip to his boss.

  When Hoddle heard stories about me drinking at Rangers, and going out on the town in London with Chris Evans, he got it into his head that I needed some special treatment to sort myself out. He said to me one day, ‘Would you like to go and see Eileen Drewery?’ I thought he’d said, ‘Would you like to go and see a brewery?’ so naturally, I said yeah, good idea, boss, count me in.

  Anyway, I went to see Eileen Drewery, who the press called his faith-healer. He thought she was marvellous. An England car was arranged to drive me to her home. She put her hand on my head, gave it a lot of soft chat, and then announced that I had bad spirits in my head. She said demons were coming out of my head and into her house. I couldn’t see them – and you’d have thought I would have noticed them. She opened the window, to let my demons out, which was thoughtful of her.

  I was there for about forty-five minutes, with Eileen feeling my head and mumbling away. When she had finished, she told me that that night, I mustn’t have a cigarette, or a glass of beer, as it would let all my bad spirits in again.

  When I was walking downstairs on my way out, I noticed her sitting in another room – having a fag. Just what she had told me not to do. Later on, at an England do, I spotted her in the players’ lounge with a bottle of beer. Things she’d told me not to do, she was doing herself. Fucking cheek! I’d played in a World Cup, a European Championship and in Italy, and I’d won two Doubles with Rangers, and here she was, telling me how to behave and how to live my life.

  Darren Anderton came back from Eileen’s and said she had healed his ankle, or whatever it was that was wrong with him, I forget. Others, too, claimed she had really helped them. Don’t get me wrong, I never rubbished her. I said nothing against her to the press or in public then, and I’m not going to start now. But I could not say she had helped me, either, when I honestly didn’t think she had. All I’m saying is that her methods were not for me. I don’t believe in all that spiritualism stuff. I’m not dismissing it as nonsense. I just don’t go along with it myself.

  Glenn sent me three times to see Eileen. What could I do? You can’t refuse the England manager, can you? But personally, I thought all the visits were a waste of time.

  In May 1997, in an England game against South Africa at Old Trafford, I had a bit of an argument with a linesman whose decisions I wasn’t happy with. While I was reasoning with him, I noticed he was chewing that nicotine gum, which I’d heard about and wanted to try. It’s supposed to make you relax.

  At half-time, Hoddle said he wanted a word with me in a few minutes, and could I step into the other room? I knew which room he meant, but I deliberately went into the wrong room. When the manager didn’t appear, I went off to try to find the linesman and ask him where he got his special tobacco gum. I got a bollocking from Hoddle for disappearing, for not going into the room he had told me to meet him in. I shouted at him, ‘Stop treating me like a fucking schoolkid!’ Which, of course, I should not have done.

  There was somebody else Hoddle lined up to help us before the 98 World Cup. One day this French bloke arrived, a dietician I suppose, who talked to us all and told us there was something very important we should do – we had to chew our food properly. He said if we did so, we would win. The phrase he kept on repeating was ‘chew to win’. So we went round saying it as well, shouting out to each other, ‘Chew to win!’ Taking the piss of course. I asked him one day, why, as he was French, he wasn’t helping the French team, getting them to chew to win. He said the French team wasn’t good enough. Showed how much he knew.

  In June 1997, we went to France for Le Tournoi, a four-nation friendly tournament involving the hosts, England, Italy and Brazil, which gave us the chance to test ourselves against our rival challengers for the World Cup the following year. We beat Italy and France but lost 1–0 to Brazil. I played in all three of our games. In the second, against France in Montpellier – which we won 1–0 with a goal from Alan Shearer – I received my fiftieth England cap.

  That autumn we played our two remaining World Cup qualifiers. I scored one of the goals in our 4–0 defeat of Moldova at Wembley in September. Then came the crunch match, the return fixture against Italy in Rome on 11 October. To make sure of qualification we needed at least a draw.

  It was one of the most tense games I ever played for England. There were over 80,000 people in the Olympic Stadium, where I had appeared many times with Lazio. It held memories, too, of the 1990 World Cup. I so wanted to do well in front of the Italian crowds, to let them see what I was still capable of. From the beginning Italy had been the favourites to win the group, which, as well as England and Moldova, included Poland and Georgia, so they were pretty confident, especially at home. And they had already beaten us at Wembley, 1–0 in February, a match I hadn’t played in.

  On the night, we managed to play the Italians at their own game, being solid and defensive when we had to, giving nothing away. I knew I had to be mature and sensible and hold the midfield. This was my fifty-third cap, which made me the most-capped player in the team, ahead of Tony Adams who was on 48, Dave Seaman with 38 and Paul Ince with 34. I felt that, at the age of thirty, I had to use my experience to help the younger lads who had not been all that long in the side, such as David Beckham. When I’d first played for England almost ten years earlier, older players like Bryan Robson and Terry Butcher had been very good with me. Now it was my turn to do the same.

  We got a 0–0 draw, which on paper seems nothing, pretty boring, but we played excellently. It was probably one of the most satisfying internationals of my career. The Italians are very good at diving and wasting time when they want to, so I did a bit of that, too, kicking the ball away and making them chase for it. It was great to see them running after it for a change. Afterwards, I felt I could walk round Italy for ever afterwards with my chest stuck out.

  The papers next day were very complimentary. ‘Gascoigne produced one of the most controlled performances of his career,’ said The Times, ‘and played with a sustained quality and maturity, illuminated by flashes of technical brilliance.’ Doesn’t quite sound like me, does it?

  The draw put us at the top of our group, one point ahead of Italy, and we were through to the 1998 World Cup finals while Italy had to go to the play-offs. Ha, ha. If Hoddle doesn’t pick me for his World Cup squad, I’ll kill him, I thought afterwards. But at the same time, I knew I’d done my job well so far, and was content to see what the next year would bring.

  At the end of the season, while waiting to depart with the World Cup squad for our warm-up camp, La Manga in Spain, I got a call from Chris Evans asking me to appear on his TV programme. I did the show and we went out for a few drinks afterwards. At 11.30 we stopped and had a chicken kebab. I was back in Chris’s house by midnight. But in that half-hour someone had taken a photo of us, and once again I was all over the papers. I know for a fact that six England players were out in Soho that night till four in the morning, but none of them appeared in the press, just me. It seemed the media were determined to crucify me.

  It wasn’t even as if it was the eve of a big game. There were still a f
ew days to go before we left for Spain. But Glenn Hoddle was furious. He said he was worried about my condition. Was I in a fit state to play for England any more? Following the Italy game, he had shaken my hand and told me I’d done brilliantly and was vital to his future plans. And now this. It was very depressing. After the kebab incident was blown up out of all proportion, I was seen out one evening with Rod Stewart and Chris Evans. Again Hoddle was quoted as saying he was worried about my behaviour but he didn’t know the truth about either incident.

  He had still been picking me, though, so that was something. After the Italy draw, I had played against Cameroon and then, in May 1998, in World Cup warm-up games with Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Belgium. I wasn’t totally fit in the Belgium game, and had got a dead leg which meant I had to come off, to be substituted by Beckham. But we weren’t beaten in any of those games except that one against Belgium, on penalties.

  Twenty-eight players were taken out to La Manga, from which Hoddle would need to select his final squad of twenty-two for the World Cup. I was pleased, naturally, but not surprised, to be told I was on my way to Spain. Given my form for England, everyone expected me to be picked.

  It was all light-hearted at first, a bit of training, bit of fun. We had karaoke one evening and I got drunk, but so did several others. Dave Seaman took me to my room and tucked me in while the others carried on drinking. At least eight of them were still up at four in the morning.

  Next day, we were left to play golf, swim or just hang around the pool. It was then that I heard that Hoddle was calling in every player, one by one, at a set time, to tell them who would be in the final twenty-two.

  This is fucking stupid, I thought; he’s treating us like schoolkids. The idea of keeping us all sitting around doing nothing for several hours, waiting for our appointment, was petty. The more I thought about it, the more I thought, I’m not having this. I don’t do waiting.