Fall From Grace: Paul Gascoigne

Fall From Grace: Paul Gascoigne

Tragedy is a word that is criminally overused in the hyped up world of modern sport but there really is no other way to describe the fall from grace of the most gifted English footballer of the past 30 years.

How has the man whose tears in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup endeared him to a nation, whose divine skill on a football pitch inspired a generation, come to live in a Gateshead hotel and be sectioned under the Mental Health Act?

No matter what your football persuasion, Gascoigne’s current plight cannot do anything other than tug at the heart strings and we can only hope that his incarceration is the shock treatment that will help this troubled soul back onto the road to redemption.

Of course, there will be some who have recoiled in horror at certain stunts, such as belching into a microphone when asked for an interview by a Norwegian television crew during his time with Lazio, or the time he drunkenly fell out of an aeroplane luggage rack.

Compassion was also thin on the ground when claims of domestic abuse emerged from his turbulent two-year marriage to wife Sheryl, which ended in divorce, while his problems with medication and the bottle have been well documented.

But beneath that troubled shell is a heart of gold and all those who dealt with Gazza during the two years he spent at Goodison Park recall a warm, generous man who just wanted to make people laugh and be loved.

Stories of his escapades on Merseyside are plentiful but two stick out, namely the afternoon he cleared a restaurant in Childwall, packed with Sunday diners, by letting a hyperactive parrot out of its cage to fly around, squawk and cause havoc.

Another episode saw Gazza steal the whistle from an old kettle at Bellefield and jam it in the exhaust of an unsuspecting kit man’s car; when said individual fired up his engine, the screams it generated were unbearable but the comedy value was priceless.

There was more to him, though, than just pranks. Another member of Everton’s backroom staff mentioned at lunch one afternoon how he was thinking of buying his children a television for their bedroom as a birthday present.

When Gascoigne got wind of this, he sloped off quietly and got the best possible model available: he never wanted or expected anything in return, other than the children to have a birthday to remember.

Others recall the incident when a young supporter had waited all morning outside Bellefield to get Gascoigne’s autograph but when he showed up the pen he gave to sign his piece of paper stopped working. No matter. Gazza simply jumped out of his car and gave the disbelieving child a pair of his boots.