Gascoigne Page #7

---

Three weeks?" He went, "No." I went, "Sh*t."

I went, "Three months?" He went, "Nah."

I went, "Six months, then?"

He went, "No, you're going to be

out a year." I burst down crying.

To know that you've done

something really serious,

to be in a hospital room

watching your team lift the FA Cup.

I...

I can't begin to imagine the emotions

that were going through his head.

That was it. Once I seen

Gary Mabbutt walk up the steps...

Lifting up the trophy.

That destroyed us, that,

because that's an I wanted to do.

If I could have done that, it's just, like,

l wouldnt be bothered if

I played another match.

I wouldn't have been bothered.

And to miss out on that...

It was unbelievable.

And I went, "Could I have a sleeping tablet?"

So I'd go to sleep.

And they went, "Just wait a bit,"

and I didn't know what was happening.

Then, all of a sudden,

about two and a half hours after the game,

the door smashed in.

It was Gary Mabbutt with the FA Cup.

The team come in. Some of the players

were with their wives and that.

I was like, my eyes must have been

red as f***, just crying.

And...

And then they went, "All right, Gaz,

we gotta go back to the party."

I was, like, to the surgeon, "Please just

plaster me up and let us go to the party."

He went, "Paul,

it's either the party or your career."

You think, "Am I going

to be the player I was?"

And I just wanted to get back playing again.

I had to. I had a big move on.

Spurs were making money from us.

I had an opportunity in playing abroad.

And that's all I knew, football,

I mean, two and two comes to five.

No, that was all I knew, football.

When you're in a room, when you're

working on the machines and all that,

and you're seeing the lads out in the field

kicking the ball about and having fun,

it destroys you a little bit

and sometimes it felt a bit lonely.

It wasn't too good.

Just me and the physio, you know?

Constantly training.

Because when you're injured, you

have to train twice as hard as other players

to get back to match fitness.

It was on the Friday and Terry Venables said,

Paul, you can join in with the team now,

on Monday. And I was so excited.

I went up to Newcastle to celebrate

with the family.

I'm training on Monday with the team.

We're in a nightclub when a guy

went past us deliberately and nudged us.

And he went, Are you Paul Gascoigne?"

I went, "Yeah,"

and he banged us right in the chin

and I fell on my kneecap.

I went to the hospital and I said,

"There's something wrong with my knee."

You know, when you press your kneecap?

I pressed my kneecap in, it wasn't there.

I had no kneecap.

I had to sit on the settee for three months,

just with my leg solid straight.

If I had any chance of making it again.

So I had to wait another six months

Gazza. Gazza, welcome.

I've never seen anything like that.

It was crazy.

Nineteen bodyguards, either side of us.

They couldn't stop them back

and they were throwing scarves at you,

trying to squash you.

It was really scary.

They're obsessed with football, full stop.

lt is one football country, that.

It's incredible.

It was the highest paid transfer made in Italy

and they made a massive thing of it.

Once you're idolised by the fans,

it's non-stop.

Back in England you'd get maybe

20 or 30 watching training.

In Italy, they surrounded the pitch.

Surrounded.

You couldn't do anything about it.

And if you did,

if the team played bad,

they would shake the fence. Go off it.

They'd really go off it.

And some of the players I could see,

they all had good wages

but they all had little banger cars.

And I'm like,

Why you got little cars like that?"

Because I realised when you played bad,

you'd drive past them

and they'd smash, and bang,

and kick your car and everything.

Yeah, it's like that. It's intense,

The players put the panics up us.

They're going, "Sh*t, Paul,

"if I lose this, I won't be able

to go out for weeks."

That's what it was like.

Come to the kick-off and it was like,

then I got nervous.

It was the first time really, in a game,

when I got nervous. Got to win this game."

And then, obviously, the game kicked off

and we're getting beat one-nil.

Then we got, obviously, the free kick.

And I went over to take the free kick

and Beppe Signori says,

"No, you get in the box." I went,

"No, I don't score many goals with my head."

I said, "You get in the box." And he went,

"Well, I'm only f***ing five foot."

So I was like, "Okay, I'll go in the box."

And by the time I got in the box,

he was ready to take it.

It was incredible. It was like, wow.

You think you just won the war.

I could have lived on that goal

for a few years over there. It was brilliant.

I scored the first goal in a Roma derby,

105,000 people there.

It was a phenomenal feeling.

Really was, it was incredible.

- Gazza!

- I love you. You are my God.

- You are my God.

- Thank you.

You are my God.

"You are my God."

I played against Maradona once in Seville.

And I turned up for the game. I went, "Diego.

I said, "I can't even really play,

but I'm a bit drunk."

He went, "Gazza, so am I."

It was funny as f***.

We started the game and I got the ball

and I'd beat five players

and smashed it into the bottom corner.

I always remember afterwards, I went,

Do the press conference, please'

"I'm in trouble."

And he went down, "So am I."

And I think we both got fined

about 40,000 each.

In Italy, we trained twice a day.

It was phenomenal. So hot.

Their warm-up was like

our training session in England.

For instance, if you get beat one-nil,

the president would come in and say,

It was crap today.

"I'm sorry, but you won't be

going home tonight after the game.

You'll be getting straight on the bus

and shooting off for three days.

And he'd take you and he'd have

a training camp and run you.

We played this little five-a-side game

and I let the guy go past us and he scored.

And Dino Zoff went mad on

a couple of players and I went, "Hold on.

"Are we playing serious here?"

I said, "You want to play serious?"

I went, "Okay, then."

And Nesta, he was a young kid

and the ball come

and I went for a crunching tackle

and I missed and I hit his calf.

My leg was on the ground and when

he picked up my calf to have a look at it,

the calf and my foot and my ankle

stayed on the ground

and my calf came forward about an inch.

The worst thing is,

they didn't have any stretcher.

So they had to get four guys carrying us.

So when one was walking forwards,

the other one was waiting,

so my leg just felt like it was pulling.

I was out for a year.

I don't think there's any question

that the injuries that Gazza sustained

impacted his life both on the pitch

and off the pitch.

And the more time you spend injured,

the more time there is to get

depressed about matters

and perhaps to turn to drink or drugs

or whatever it is that does it for you

in those circumstances.

Especially his personality,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes