Gazza’s cruel treatment shows how far our game still has to go
IT was World Mental Health Day last Wednesday. Among its aims were global mental health education, awareness and the reduction of social stigma. It was the next day that the Scottish Football Hall of Fame withdrew its invitation to Paul Gascoigne, who was due to be inducted into it at an awards dinner next weekend.
One minute, football tells Gascoigne it is proud of him; the next it says that it is embarrassed by him.
It is as if we never grow tired of expecting him to act conventionally. It is as if we never stop expecting him to get well. And when he doesn’t, he gets another dose of our disapproval.
The Scottish Football Hall of Fame acted appallingly towards him — but they are not alone.
The most cynical thing they did was blame health concerns for the rescinding of his invitation.
Gascoigne wasn’t well when they issued the invitation in the first place and if one thing is certain in the whole sorry mess, this humiliation won’t make him any better.
The actions of Scottish Football’s Hall of Fame make it appear cruel and callous, stupid and weak.
Gascoigne, a man without artifice, has been caught in a web spun by men playing petty political games.
In the middle of last week, various influential members of the Scottish Football Association let it be known they would boycott the awards dinner at Hampden because they did not consider Gascoigne a fitting role model. Pressure was applied. The Hall of Fame panicked.
Gascoigne, it was speculated, was suddenly deemed an unworthy recipient of the honour because he had indulged in sectarianism rather too enthusiastically while at Rangers, because he had attacked his former wife, Sheryl, during his time at Ibrox, because he is locked in an ongoing battle with alcoholism and because his recent antics have been ‘unpredictable’.
A scroll down the list of names in the Hall of Fame reveals a list of brilliant players and managers — and some men who may not have been saints. It did not stop them being admitted.
The antipathy towards Gascoigne, then, is selective. It’s because his illness isolates him. It’s because he doesn’t fit. It’s because football doesn’t know what to do with him.
It’s the same with broadcasting. Television stations want him on our screens because of his name and because of the affection in which he is held. And they too have never stopped expecting him to behave conventionally.
His most recent appearance, on Sky’s Soccer AM a few weeks ago, was described as ‘chaotic’. It was accompanied by suggestions he was drunk. Gascoigne said he had issues with sleeping tablets.
That is the way it has always been. Polite society has never been able to rely on him to ‘behave’. Once, when he was a superstar in his prime, the game laughed with him and said he was daft as a brush. But, as he starts to walk uneasily into the foothills of his 50s, it’s not laughing any more. He is the guilty conscience that won’t go away.
It would be glib to say football has turned its back on him. Friends and former team-mates, the PFA and his former clubs have all tried to help him.
However, they have all realised the same thing — you can fix a knee problem by sending a player to a surgeon in Colorado, but what is ailing Gascoigne is way more complicated than that.
And so what happens is that organisations like the Scottish Football Hall of Fame blunder into the midst of his agonies and make things worse.
‘They have caused heartache and extra pressure to a man who struggles with the demons in life but has been doing well,’ said Gazza’s agent Shane Whitfield.
The Hall of Fame blamed his health issues, but he has had health issues for a long time. It’s funny how we always use that vague term when we are talking about mental health, in particular.
We ignored those ‘issues’ while he was playing because he was too valuable then, but now the knowledge of them gnaws away at us. Football is used to fixing things by throwing money at them, but even the game’s millions have not helped Gazza.
The truth is that the way the SFA and the Scottish Football Hall of Fame acted was a reminder of just how far we still have to travel in our attitudes to mental health.
It is easy paying lip service to the idea that we need to be more aware of what people face but sometimes when confronted with those issues, the temptation is to hope they go away.
In football terms, Gascoigne deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Sure, he was past his best when he joined Rangers from Lazio in July 1995.
But he remains the most talented player England has produced since the 1966 World Cup and he was Scottish football’s Player of the Year in the first of his three seasons in Glasgow. He won the title twice at the end of Rangers’ run of nine successive league triumphs.
So it was not his football achievements that threw the late and insurmountable obstacles into the path of his induction into the Hall. It was the stuff we still don’t like talking about, stuff that still makes us feel uncomfortable.
World Mental Health Day was supposed to be about reducing the stigma of the problems that some people face.
For Gascoigne, it was a day that told him football, once his refuge, was turning its back on him again, a day that pushed him further down the road to being a pariah.