‘If I close my eyes I can see the swaying player who bamboozled the opposition, doing the totally unexpected, and delighting a public who throughout the years of his pomp never lost their affection for him’
JOHN WATCHED GIBSON GAZZA FROM A YOUNG TALENT AT NEWCASTLE UNITED TO HIS TIME IN ROME WITH LAZIO, AND HAS NO DOUBT OVER HOW GOOD HE WAS
THAT Paul Gascoigne has reached the significant milestone of his 50th birthday will be a moment of delight, relief, and celebration for those who cherish a footballer whose gifts were bestowed from above. May the candles on his cake burn brightly and hope flood a fragile body. Because Gazza was without question the greatest English footballing genius of his generation. Nay, it is totally wrong to limit him to a generation. In the history of North East football, where talent has abounded like the rich veins of coal once mined in our area Gascoigne stands supreme. Maybe Bobby Charlton and Paul Beardsley can be talked about in the same breath but few more. Alan Shearer was a magnificent goalscorer, a great oak of a centreforward, but in terms of allround trickery and flair given by the Almighty to so few, he cannot compare with Gazza. The same applies to Wor Jackie.
Indeed, talk of the finest street footballers ever to grace our planet such as Pele, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Diego Maradona and we can couple the name of Gascoigne without fear of open derision.
He was bought into Italy’s famed Serie A when it was the ultimate stage in world football before the total emergence of La Liga, the Bundesliga, and the Premier League such was his gilt-edged appeal both in ability and marketable personality.
Nought more than a whippersnapper, Gazza personally piloted England to the semifinals of the World Cup at Italia 90, our finest achievement on foreign soil, and sparked off Gazza-mania as a nation went wild for the original cheeky chappie. Football had a new clown prince.
His manager Bobby Robson called Gazza “daft as a brush” but they loved one another – a partnership between pure football disciples made in heaven.
But for a crippling injury sustained at Tottenham when already bound for Rome and Lazio the position of Gazza in the pantheon of world football would be unquestioned.
I spent several rip-roaring days as his guest at the luxury villa on the outskirts of Rome he called home during his time with Lazio. It was back in late 1994 and Gazza was adored by one half of the soccer-mad capital . . . bubbly, infectious, silly, visionary, impulsive, and sensitive. If soccer is showbiz then this guy was centre stage, not in the chorus line. The idea of my visit was Geordie meets Geordie in La Dolce Vita – not the nightclub in Newcastle but Rome sweet Rome. The Chron had booked me into a hotel but Paul was having none of it. He moved me into his villa where I lived not only for the duration of my stay but three extra days after being persuaded by him to take in the weekend and Lazio’s match against Napoli. Gazza was obsessed by motorbikes – he had no fewer than nine Harley-Davidsons at one stage. However Lazio, realising their prize asset could be a tile short of a roof, banned him from driving to training on his power machine. So what did our Geordie jester do? Donned a German Second World War helmet, drove through the choking Rome traffic like a maniac with his dad and me in a vehicle behind him, parked his bike in a garage just round the corner from Lazio’s training ground, leaped into our car, and arrived all sweetness and light. On the way home Gazza would flick a switch to electronically open the gates to his villa, roar up the long driveway straight through the open patio windows, park his Harley-Davidson on the sheepskin rug, take off his
German helmet to plonk himself in an armchair and watch Elvis videos!
Mad as a butcher’s dog, he got up in the middle of the night one time, woke me up, and sneaked off to a nearby bedroom where one of his mates from Newcastle was sleeping. Meticulously Gazza shaved off one of his eyebrows.
Kindness himself, Gazza used to hire a horse-drawn carriage and he would sit up front proudly twitching the reins while I relaxed in the back like royalty. More than once he brought Rome’s traffic to a standstill waving to bus and taxi drivers as he took me sightseeing visiting the likes of the Vatican, Colosseum, Sistine Chapel, and Trevi Fountain.
Gazza paid for the hire and for dinner every night in his favourite restaurant. Even when I insisted it was my turn he would wait until I visited the little boy’s room and sneak off to settle the bill.
When we drove to the Olympic Stadium for Lazio’s match with his dad, Gazza was mobbed by fans after we came to a standstill at an underpass. I still have a few Lazio scarfs in the back of my wardrobe which were thrown into our vehicle by devotees.
However treasured those personal memories undoubtedly are, it’s Gazza the football entertainer who fills my heart.
If I close my eyes I can see the swaying player who bamboozled the opposition, doing the totally unexpected, and delighting a public who throughout the years of his pomp never lost their affection for him.
I can recall sitting in Wembley during the 1996 European Championships when the Auld Enemy Scotland came to town. The match delicately balanced at 1-0 after a Shearer header, David Seaman saved a penalty and England broke for Gazza to make a right monkey out of Colin Hendry, flicking the ball over his head with one foot and before it landed volleying it past Andy Goram with the other.
He raced away behind the goal and lay full length on the turf to have imaginary pints poured down his throat by delighted teammates.
Gazza played with a smile on his face. He blew kisses to opponents, stuck his tongue out at referees, and shoved the ball up his jersey to conduct terrace chants of ‘fat boy.’ Of course he could be silly and go wildly over the top sometimes but there wasn’t a bad bone in his body. Underneath the strutter was a small boy as soft as putty who would give an old guy in a pub his last penny and could be easily hurt by criticism. I have known Gazza since he was a small chirpy lad kicking a ball round the back streets of Gateshead dreaming the dream of every Geordie kid. Only he was different. Life of course caught up with Gazza once the numbing, empty feeling of retirement bit into his soul. Stella Artois was already becoming a regular companion and soon his demons engulfed him. So-called friends and hangers on melted away and times became fraught with sad moments of decline. A nation has mourned the entertainer they lost. What they had instead is a stranger. But today we want to celebrate the outrageous talent of a Geordie superstar. We want to remember the good times when Gazza was king and Tyneside hailed one of their own.