Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I felt a push in the back and turned around to see a little old lady ...she let rip at me
My pal Gazza, a horse’s head & doe, a deer, a female deer
been “the archetypal floating voter”, adding: “People think I’m a massive lefty snowflake, but I have always been kind of middle ground.”
He also has almost 10 times as many Twitter followers as Elton John, but Gary admits he was still star struck when the singer called out of the blue on the evening of May 2, 2016.
He says: “My beloved Leicester City had just won the Premier League title for the first time in their history and I saw this unknown +01 number come up on my phone.
“He just said, ‘I just wanted to congratulate you’.
“It was a, ‘wow’ moment and I was totally star struck, even though we had spoken a few times before.
“In fact, for a while we kept bumping into each other, once in a restaurant in LA, then on the beach in the South of France. Perhaps he’s stalking me. “Or maybe I’m stalking him?” Another bizarre celebrity encounter which Gary recalls in his new book Behind Closed Doors, co-written with his podcast colleague Danny Baker, happened while he was on holiday in Sardinia with his first wife Michelle. GARY has watched as his friend and former team mate Paul Gascoigne’s life has hit highs and terrible lows over the years.
Gazza’s escapades loom large in the book. One anecdote tells of how Gazza, trying to feed tigers, accidentally threw a horse’s head into a penguin enclosure at a Chinese zoo.
But the incident that captures the mercurial player’s nature perfectly happened within minutes of the midfielder’s tearful breakdown during England’s defeat to West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semi in Turin.
Gary recalls the atmosphere after the match: “We were distraught. We ended up on the team bus and a few beers were passed around. Eventually, the bus starts moving along and then the singing started.
“‘Doe, a deer, a female deer…’ It was always Gazza starting it, and Chris Waddle, and then it built up gradually until there was this great crescendo and everyone was singing it and, in a bizarre, weird kind of way it lifted everyone’s spirits, but it was typical Gazza. Gazza is amazing.”
Gazza also coined a nickname for Gary, who says: “So David Beckham might have been given the nickname Goldenballs by his wife, but I was actually given the nickname way earlier by Gazza. Well not Goldenballs, Golden Bollocks actually.
“He used it after George Best had claimed that Gazza’s IQ was lower than his shirt number and Gazza came up to me and said, ‘Hey Golden Bollocks, what does IQ mean?’.”
Gary has not seen Gazza in three years but keeps in touch. “He texted me last week and said he’s doing all right and I told him we all love him.
Gary says: “He’s back on Twitter, he’s cracking his jokes, he’s got a new manager. I’ve got 14 numbers in my phone. It’s a different one every time.
“I love Gazza to bits. He’s got his flaws, but haven’t we all?”