Gazza 25 years on

How Walter Smith pulled a masterstroke to land Geordie genius

THE Edmiston Drive mood had calmed down to a frenzy by the time Sir David Murray emerged from the front door of Ibrox and, before settling into his car, entered into an amusing exchange with punters.

‘Wait till we make the big signing next week,’ teased Murray as he accepted the applause of the throng whose autograph books were now adorned with a signature of Paul Gascoigne the Rangers player.

‘Who’s that?’ begged the instant, hysterical response from one supporter. ‘I’m only joking,’ assured Murray.

Of course he was. Even given the opulence of the era, how could the Rangers chairman have topped the gift he presented to his adoring audience half an hour earlier?

Gascoigne, the biggest name and personality in British football, had been paraded as a £4.3million signing from Lazio.

The midfielder was long expected to return home to England, where Chelsea and Leeds United led the chase and agreed deals with the Serie A giants.

Yet on July 10, 1995 — 25 years ago this Friday — thousands of Rangers supporters gathered to welcome and worship the new bleached blond pin-up of Ibrox.

Rangers had trumped both English superpowers, in no small part thanks to the cute personal touch of manager Walter Smith. Smith’s calculated risk of jetting

out to try to meet

Gascoigne face-to-face and unannounced at his home on the hills outside Rome paid off. But only just.

Ex-Leeds director and deal-maker Bill Fotherby’s story is one of travelling to Rome and striking a deal with Lazio owner Sergio Cragnotti, only to arrive at the Gascoigne villa gates to be greeted and terrified by a snarling dog. There was no sign of Gazza.

Former Chelsea chief executive Colin Hutchison’s tale is the lament of lunching with Gascoigne, only for the star to say thanks but inform him and manager Glenn Hoddle that he’d already agreed to join Rangers.

And that’s because Smith got his timing just right. Had he arrived a few hours later, never mind delayed planning his trip by a day, then the meeting that convinced Gazza to move to Scotland would never have happened.

‘I’d read in the paper one day that Paul Gascoigne and Lazio were parting company — and that he was coming back to England,’ recalled Smith. ‘I thought to myself: “If he’s coming back to England, then why not have a go ourselves?”.

‘David Murray got in touch with the chairman of Lazio and asked if he could have permission to speak to the player.

‘They said “fine” and were good enough to give me an address. I got a flight over, then a taxi and pressed the doorbell on the gate.

‘I was keen that the personal touch, if there’s a lot of clubs wanting to sign him, would be the right thing to do.

‘He had no idea I was coming and I’ve never done that with any other player.

‘He asked me what I was doing there. I said I had come to try and get him to sign for Rangers. Almost right away, he said: “Sure, I’d love that”.

‘But I was really lucky. He was actually leaving to go away o n holiday that evening. He needed to be at the airport in Rome at 8pm that night to meet his family who were flying in from London then heading away for a couple of weeks.

‘That left me, the housekeeper and a couple of his pals. So I stayed the night at his place.

‘We went to the local restaurant for something to eat, I got up early in the morning and flew back.’ An evening house-sitting for Paul Gascoigne with Jimmy Five Bellies certainly wouldn’t be the last interesting experience for Smith now that their relationship was going to be manager and player.

The first had been as holiday pals. A year earlier, the Smith and Gascoigne families were booked into the same Florida hotel for the summer break. Smith’s sons Neil and Steven were naturally thrilled to be in Gazza’s company.

For Smith, the seed was planted that it might not be as fanciful as first thought to work together one day.

‘We had a couple of nights out with our families,’ explained Smith. ‘And I always remember him saying to me that, as a boy, he felt a lot of people in Newcastle had an affinity with Rangers.

‘He said that stuck in his mind and he asked me about Rangers. I felt that might give us a wee start when we tried to sign him.’

Considering that underhand tactics, gazumping and mercenary changes of the mind are common place shenanigans in the transfer market, it could be considered remarkable that Gascoigne never wavered.

‘Although there were still a few other clubs trying to sign him, he kept his word,’ stressed Smith. ‘Anyone who has met him would say that he’s a likeable lad.

‘I don’t know what the clubs did but the Premier League wasn’t what it is now. They were just warming up in terms of the Sky money. So financially we weren’t miles away from them. That was a factor.

‘Everything was on hold for a couple of weeks while he was away on holiday. Then the chairman and I went to London to meet with the people from Lazio, did the deal, did the deal with Gascoigne and that was it.’

Smith insists he received far more positive feedback than cautionary tales when confiding his interest in pursuing Gascoigne.

The Rangers boss was undaunted by the prospect of multiple off-field skirmishes being brought to his door and unconcerned that two long-term injuries may have taken their toll on the then 28-year-old.

‘You knew you were always taking

‘LAZIO GAVE ME HIS ADDRESS SO I FLEW OVER, RANG HIS DOORBELL AND ASKED HIM TO SIGN FOR RANGERS’

I thought, if he’s coming back to England, why not have a go ourselves?

on a wee bit of something different but I was happy to do that,’ said Smith.

‘Terry Venables said to me: “Walter, as long as he thinks that you are on his side, then you’ve not got a great problem”.

‘The reason I did it was to give us a great footballer. Brian Laudrup gave us a spark the season before and we needed another one. And I don’t think anyone who saw Paul play over the next two or three seasons would say anything other than the fact he played extremely well for us.

‘Yes, he’s got the moments of daftness. But you knew you were taking all that on, so there was no use complaining about it any time he had a transgression.

‘He was always a boy who, when he did something wrong, was remorseful afterwards.

‘Once you get used to receiving a phone call from someone telling you that he’s been driving a London bus down Oxford Street, it was alright.’

Smith credits his no-nonsense assistant Archie Knox with a massive role in managing the added extras.

For Knox, this unexpected chance to work with Gascoigne came seven years later than advertised.

Knox was No 2 to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and Gascoigne the centre of a transfer tangle between Old Trafford and White Hart Lane.

Knox recalled: ‘I was just going away on my holidays when I got the phone call from Alex who said: “That’s it, we’ve got Gascoigne signed”.

‘I thought: “That’s great”. He was the rising star at Newcastle. I went away thinking we had him at United and that was an exciting thought.

‘But Spurs came up with a deal that Man United wouldn’t go to, with houses for his family and all the rest of it.

‘Watching him play for Spurs, I wasn’t the only one thinking we wished we were working with him. Who wouldn’t?

‘Listen, you can never tell. But I think coming to work with Alex — the same as coming to work with Walter — would have had a positive effect on him.

‘Behaviour-wise, trying to keep him right and stuff like that. I would have been surprised if Alex hadn’t been able to keep him under a bit of control.

‘But when Walter sprang it on me one day at lunch about signing Paul Gascoigne and I thought about it purely in football terms, I had to say: “Of course you’d go for it”.’

Among others, Gascoigne was introduced to new team-mates

John Brown and Ally McCoist in Las Vegas over brunch in Caesars Palace.

The established Ibrox stars were there for the Rangers North America Supporters’ Convention, Gascoigne a visitor with wife Sheryl before the serious business began at Ibrox.

Brown reveals that they got on famously, though that didn’t stop him giving Gascoigne a brutal welcome to Rangers in one early training session a few weeks later.

‘Bomber’ explained: ‘My first impression in Las Vegas was how down to earth he was, how excited he was that he was joining the club. And I suspect he didn’t like flying because he was pretty well on when he met us just after landing!

‘The fact we had got Gazza on board, the top midfielder England had for a generation, was a fantastic result for the club. The whole dressing room was buzzing.

‘I then remember us having a bounce game and him trying to nutmeg me. I just put him on his backside and got right in about him after that.

‘Walter told me Gazza came straight to his office and he said: “What the hell was all that about? He was kicking me all over the place!” Walter said: “Well, that’s what I told him to do”.

‘That gave him a wee taste of what the training was going to be like, never mind the opposition in Scotland.

‘He had a lot of things going on in his life but the one thing he loved was training and playing football. And, to be fair, I knew he was usually one of the first at the ground on a Monday morning for training.

‘When you saw a big white limousine parked behind the

Broomloan Stand, you

I remember him trying to nutmeg me, so I just put him on his backside

knew that was Gazza just up from London overnight, waiting for someone to open the main door!’

For Knox, the signing marked the beginning of an enduring connection that has extended well beyond their time together at Rangers and Everton and survived all the star’s troubles with mental illness and alcohol addiction.

When he appeared at a publicity event for Premier Sports late last year at Glasgow’s Hilton Hotel, Knox was pleased to note Gascoigne was in decent health.

‘I do like to go along to see how he’s doing,’ said Knox. ‘I’d been to Ayr racecourse a previous time and he wasn’t in a particularly good way.

‘But in Glasgow, he was in good form and good nick. He wasn’t drinking. You really don’t like to see him struggling.

‘I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago, actually. He phoned me. Sometimes you can’t get him off the bloody phone — “I’m doing this, I’m doing that, I’m doing the next thing”.

‘I said: “As long as you’re doing well, then that’s all you need to worry about”.

‘There have been different types of phone calls over the years. But every time you get one and he’s in good spirits, that’s good to hear.

‘You’d just like to see him reaping the rewards that he deserves from the talent he had and that he all showed us when he played for Rangers.’