We could have won 10 IN A ROW if I’d stayed!
Gascoigne on his biggest regret after leaving for Middlesbrough back in 1998...
THERE are plenty of laughs about past highlights and hilarities, of course. With Paul Gascoigne, there usually are. Lots of reflection, too, on what might have been.
Gazza remains convinced, for instance, that Rangers could have clinched an historic tenth consecutive title if only he’d followed his heart and stayed with the Light Blues for just a few more weeks.
The finest natural talent of his generation, a man who only ever seemed fully at ease with a ball on his toes and an opponent nipping his heels, is happy to discuss all things football.
Yet he also realises the public’s desire for more than just the odd insight into the beautiful game.
Sounding very much like someone who is asked one simple question — ‘How are you doing, Gazza?’ — at least a dozen times a day by well-wishers, the former England great insisted: ‘I’ve been good, I’ve been looking after myself.
‘I’ve got a lot of work on, some projects, some telly, a new movie coming out — Thirty Years of Hurt — and a couple of books, too.
‘I’ve got a couple of venues to appear at and loads of other stuff. It’s something to look forward to, you know? I’m enjoying life.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow — but right now I’m enjoying it. Hopefully it stays like that.
‘I’m the first to admit I’m not perfect. I don’t want to be perfect, anyway. That would be boring.
‘I’m enjoying the way things are, although I miss football. I’m not saying I want to get back into it, just that I miss it.
‘My left hip is so sore that I can’t stand on it when I kick with my right. So I need to get that sorted.
‘But, yeah, things are looking good at the moment. Hopefully it stays that way. You never know with me, guys.’
Gazza being Gazza, he can’t pass up an opportunity to intersperse talk of his own semi-regular running routine with a revelation about seeing Graeme Souness out cycling — sans shirt.
‘If he was chocolate, he’d eat himself,’ said a grinning Gascoigne.
Back in Glasgow to help launch Premier Sport’s coverage of Serie A, the former Lazio midfielder clearly loved being ‘home’, as he called it. Eight selfies in the first 100 yards covered at 7.30 yesterday morning reminded him of just how much fun he had in Scotland.
His only regret was that it ended too soon, with his move to Middlesbrough in March 1998 meaning he wasn’t able to influence the closing stages of a title race that — following losses to Aberdeen and Kilmarnock — ended with the Nine-in-a-Row winners ceding their crown to Celtic.
‘I remember driving down to Boro to sign for them — and I stopped halfway and cried my eyes out,’ the 52-year-old revealed.
‘I still have a lump in my throat thinking about it. David Murray phoned and told me to turn the car round and come back.
‘But I had promised Bryan Robson I would head there. It’s a massive regret. I always think that, had I stayed, would we have won Ten-in-a-Row?’
Revelling in memories of his move to Glasgow, the ex-Newcastle and Tottenham midfielder recalled: ‘I’d decided to leave Lazio and Dino Zoff told me there were four clubs in for me.
‘I asked who they were and he said: “Chelsea”. I wasn’t going there. Then it was Leeds and Aston Villa and I also said no to them.
‘And I was walking out when he mentioned Rangers. I still said no but he said: “Glasgow Rangers?” I stopped and replied: “I thought you meant Queen’s Park Rangers. Get them on the phone — I’m leaving”. I immediately told them I’d come over next week.
‘They said they’d offer me X amount per week and I took a drop to move.
‘When I played for England, I used to take the p*** out of Terry Butcher and Chris Woods because they were playing for Rangers — and they told me not to knock it until I’d tried it.
‘At one point during the World Cup in Italy, I gave them so much stick that they battered me — they actually pinned me down and punched the living daylights out of me.
‘To be fair, when I did try it I found out that they were right. I remember making my debut and losing the ball. I thought: “That’s all right, I’ll get it back in a minute”. And some old guy about 70 shouted: “Get off your a***; you’re not on holiday now!” So I ran and got it back again. But I loved all that.
‘When Walter Smith spoke to me about joining Rangers, he asked me what I missed most about my game and I replied “smiling”. He told me that Rangers would put the smile back on my face and get me enjoying my football again — and he was right.’
It didn’t take long for Gascoigne to recognise that he was a part of a team chasing something special, as Smith’s Rangers sought to
equal the record of Celtic’s nine consecutive league titles.
‘The lads were going on about it all the time,’ he said. ‘The first championship medal I ever won was when we did Eight-in-a-Row and the boys were all happy.
‘Some of the other players felt that pressure more than me as they’d been there from the start.
‘When we made it nine, it was quite sad in a way. Some of my team-mates had their heads down and there were a few tears, because they seemed to know it was the end of a great era.’
Gascoigne is an in-demand speaker these days, not surprising when you consider the career — and the life — he’s had. His audiences don’t want to hear about the darker stuff, the alcohol problems that have contributed to some awful choices.
And so his conversation is peppered with comic anecdotes and one-liners guaranteed to have them rolling in the aisles.
You want one about Kenny Dalglish? Not a problem.
‘When I was with Newcastle and looking for a move, I got a call at home from Kenny, who was in charge of Liverpool,’ he said.
‘I mouthed to my dad that Kenny was on the phone and spoke to him for about half an hour.
‘When I hung up, my dad asked me what he’d spoken about and I said: “I didn’t understand a single word of it”. I never heard from him again.’
His chat about playing against boyhood idol Robson as a 17year-old at Newcastle is equally amusing, including an obligatory funny voice, Gazza (right) impersonating his younger self as he recalls — in falsetto fashion — telling the Manchester United legend: ‘Great penalty, Bryan’ after he’d just put the Reds one up on the Toon.
At the other end of his career, he laughs when he recalls seeing a young Steven Gerrard break through in bold and bruising fashion. ‘I played against him when I was at Everton, he came on as sub for Liverpool with about half an hour to go,’ said Gascoigne. ‘He hit this shot from about 30 yards which hit the stanchion. I wasn’t pleased, so I must have clipped him with my elbow — accidentally. ‘He says he got an elbow off Gazza and went out that night bragging about it, pointing to his black eye and saying: “Gazza did that!”.’ Everyone wanted to be connected with him somehow. That’s still true, to an extent, with Jose Mourinho and Harry Redknapp just two of the big names to have invited Gascoigne in to work with some of the world’s best players.
He’s done some coaching badges, spent a bit of time with Newcastle’s academy kids. There’s no doubt he misses the game.
Bemoaning the ‘robots’ churned out by a youth system that doesn’t encourage risk taking by even the most skilful players, however, he asked: ‘Not being big-headed, how can I teach kids to do what I did?’
The last time he tried, he hurt his titanium hip. The time before that, he suffered a knee injury.
If physical pain and disaffection with the modern game means he might be lost to frontline football, though, at least the Geordie genius doesn’t seem quite such a lost soul.
Tomorrow? Harder to second guess than a typical Gazza mazy run. Amid the belly laughs, that’s always going to be the case.
Premier Sports will screen up to six live Serie A matches each week, including Juventus v Napoli and Lazio v Roma this weekend. See premiersports.com for details.