‘There should be an inquiry into Paul Gascoigne one day. How did it end up like this? How, when we could all see the trouble ahead, was his decline allowed to happen like a slow-motion car crash?
What could we, as people in football, have done to help him?
The people I would want to hear from, right at the start, are his agents, his accountants, his lawyers, all the people that made fortunes from the industry that was Paul Gascoigne. What do these people actually do to help when the money stops coming in?
I’m sure there are one or two agents who care beyond that final payday, but a lot of them are only interested in the loot. Who is looking after Paul Gascoigne now? At one time you never saw him without an agent by his side. Now he’s out there, it seems, totally alone.
In one way they are lucky that he became an alcoholic, because that way everyone blames Paul for his problems and forgets that he had a legion of experts who were supposed to look after him.
Sadly, in terms of numbers and accounts, footballers just don’t know what day it is. Some footballers earn £300,000 a week, and who has the financial knowledge to deal with that?
Unless the people around them are honest, they are vulnerable, an easy target. I’m not exempting myself from this; as my court case (in 2012, for tax evasion, of which he was cleared) showed, I’m near the top of any list for naivety.
I just don’t think the advice is there, even now ‘this is what to do with your money, this is how to avoid going skint’. For all the advances in other areas of the game, I still think players are left to rely solely on their agents.
All young players should be familiar with Gascoigne’s story first as an inspiration, because he was such a great footballer, but then as a warning of how quickly the fun can turn to tears.
I’ve been lucky. I’ve always been in a position where I’ve earned really good money over the years, as a manager. Paul earned great money as a footballer but then it was over.
He was a recovering alcoholic by the time he was at Everton, and he was only 34 when he played his last game for that club.
I remember crying with laughter one night with Walter Smith, who managed him at Rangers as well, telling stories about the stuff he used to get up to. Some of it was madness.
He used to go out with his air rifle and would give his mate Jimmy Five Bellies £100 to use his backside as a target. He would send Jimmy up the end of the range, get him to drop his trousers and bend over, and every time he got hit on the bum he would give him £100 compensation. He hit him on the same place twice once. Walter says you could hear the screaming from the centre of Glasgow and also Gazza laughing about it.
He once played a wicked trick on Ally McCoist, who had just bought a big and expensive new car. Gazza had been fishing, so he hid a giant salmon in Ally’s motor, under the floor of the boot where the spare wheel goes, then put it all back exactly as it was. It drove Ally mad it was the height of summer and his car stank of rotting fish.
Eventually, he took it back to the dealer and they found it. What he didn’t know was that Gazza had a pal who was a mechanic and he had hidden a second one in the engine somewhere it couldn’t be found. Every time Ally put his air conditioning on, he got another blast of decomposing salmon.
Gazza was hyperactive, that was the problem. He couldn’t sleep. In the 1991 FA Cup, Portsmouth played Tottenham in the fifth round. Terry Venables, the Tottenham manager, was at breakfast on the day of the game when one of the players approached him, very worried. ‘Gazza couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘He’s been up since 3am playing squash.’ ‘Thanks,’ said Venables, ‘but who was he playing against?’ It turned out to be Paul Walsh.
Terry dropped Walsh from the team, but started Gascoigne knowing one had the metabolism to handle it, and the other would be dead on his feet. Tottenham won 21, and Gascoigne scored both goals. He had an energy level that was berserk but what a footballer.
Considering his talent, some of the moves he had at the end of his career were heartbreaking. Kettering Town, Gansu Tianma near the Gobi desert in China and Boston United. There is a history over the years of players with great talent finishing up in these career dead-ends. George Best was with Brisbane Lions and Nuneaton Borough; Jimmy Greaves played with Chelmsford City, Barnet and Woodford Town. They were not making the right decisions, not getting the right advice.
When Paul was at his peak before the bad knee injury, there was no one like him. In the modern game, I’d put him alongside Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero, because he had flair that was almost South American.
All the top teams are searching for that figure now, the individual who can change the game. Modern defences are so packed, defensive midfields so organised, that everyone is searching for a Gascoigne-type to unpick that lock. We all loved him, whatever his weaknesses as a person. I see Paul reasonably often because he lives near me now, and he always stops and has a chat. He’s as good as gold really.
He’s someone I would love to find a spot for somewhere, if I could. If he actually wanted to come and do it, I’d like to help, get him working with the youth team, and get him back in the game again. Yet, really, shouldn’t Tottenham be prioritising that now?
I can understand that clubs might not want him to coach academy kids there could be worries about parent reaction because of his run-ins with the police but surely there is a way of finding work for him? Would he turn up? I would hope so.’
