Gascoigne

[Tee]

Good to see Chris Evans, that cunt Irani, Lineker and Piers Morgan have paid for him to go to the US and sort himself out. Apparently members of the England squad have also pledged to donate large sums should he need it.

Should count himself extremely fortunate and think of those in similar predicaments but without those kind of contacts.

[Mattimetal]

I think for those of us that have lived with, or had an alcoholic in the family - you can pour as much money into them for rehab etc. But at the end of the day, they are the ones that have to help themselves unfortunately.

[Gingawaria]

It's all well and good that they've paid all this money for him to go get help but at the end of the day, he needs to help himself as well.

I fully appreciate that alcoholism and depression are illnesses but he needs to make a conscious decision to stop. It's no good locking him up in rehab for a few weeks/months, he needs to change his lifestyle dramatically. I hope he can do it because he's still got a lot to offer.

[Vermilion]

Good to see Chris Evans, that cunt Irani, Lineker and Piers Morgan have paid for him to go to the US and sort himself out. Apparently members of the England squad have also pledged to donate large sums should he need it.

I'm all for that, but i'm not comfortable with the publicity it's getting, just do it and keep it quiet imo.

It's not hard to give money when you have a lot though, what the lad needs/needed is good friends around him constantly supporting him.

[Tee]

I'm all for that, but i'm not comfortable with the publicity it's getting, just do it and keep it quiet imo.

It's not hard to give money when you have a lot though, what the lad needs is good friends around him constantly supporting him.

And I echo those sentiments that he has to have the desire to sort his life out or this is just another waste of time.

[Shaggy]

Gascoigne is apparently still surrounded by a lot of unsavoury sorts. He obviously needs to help himself but he needs loads of guidance and he'll never be able to do it on his own.

[Vermilion]

And I echo those sentiments that he has to have the desire to sort his life out or this is just another waste of time.

This is also true of course.

I think he's been in that place tbh, wanting to be sorted and happy to do it, but for whatever reason he keeps relapsing, could simply be the company he's constantly keeping, and the environment he's in most days.

Time is the hardest gift of all to give to sick people in todays world, but it's what he needs most from people, but not ones who's first thought is to buy the lad a drink.

Sad to see anyone like that tbh.

[Vermilion]

Gascoigne is apparently still surrounded by a lot of unsavoury sorts. He obviously needs to help himself but he needs loads of guidance and he'll never be able to do it on his own.

[Gingawaria]

Gascoigne is apparently still surrounded by a lot of unsavoury sorts. He obviously needs to help himself but he needs loads of guidance and he'll never be able to do it on his own.

Fair point...he definitely needs separating from that lot.

[danperkins]

I would hazard a guess that we will hear some tragic news about Gazza sooner rather than later. Such a character but i wonder is it just a case where the guy is beyond help.

P.S. My 2nd cousin nearly married Gazza long time ago.

[Shaggy]

http://blogs.thetimes.co.uk/section/the-game/97498/nothing-black-and-white-about-gazza/?shareToken=575056ec1f071e47895de394c7c6d9e2

Nothing black and white about Gazza

George Caulkin
February 07 2013 12:02PM



Pink, pudgy and dipped in chip-fat – I remember Paul Gascoigne. Hair shorn above the ears, gurning grin where teeth should be, shorts too tight – I remember him. As ugly as sin and as sexy as it, too, because with a ball at his boot-tips and running at full tilt, I’ve never seen football so muscular or beautiful. I remember Paul Gascoigne and, by God, I love him.

Close to the touchline, an off day at St James’ Park, I remember a shout of exasperation from nearby: “Pull your finger out Gazza, man, you fat *******.” And he did, first one finger and then another, holding them aloft in a rigid V, with a “f*** off” and a wink thrown in. I don’t recall complaints to stewards, demands for an arrest, front-page exposés or questions in the House. I remember laughter.

I remember seeing him sprint forward from the centre circle. He looked too big for the pitch, let alone his strip, but when he moved, the ungainly became poetic, although it was a violent sort of artistry – elbows and sharp edges – that took him around, past and occasionally through defenders. It looked like human bagatelle, the ball clacking between his feet, and yet somehow under control, the only aspect of his life that was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnVn0KVhCs

The North East could not contain him, but talent drained away frequently back then and when he moved from Newcastle United to Tottenham Hotspur, an axis shifted with him. He was such a draw, such a force. When he burst into Sir Bobby Robson’s England squad and refused to be ignored, I remember feeling differently about my country; it wasn’t just Thatcher’s country, it was Gazza’s. And he was ours.

That era of Robson’s; Gascoigne, Beardsley, Waddle, Robson, men from a region of coal, steel and shipbuilding. That felt like some sort of affirmation. I remember those tears – “the tears that watered the Turin pitch” as Sir Bobby would refer to them – because for people who adored football it brought a wider acceptance that our sport could bring emotion of a warming kind, even if the source was sadness. He brought change.

I remember a kind of role-reversal, Sir Bobby wiping moisture from his face when, in his last, ailing months, he spoke of Gascoigne’s mountainous heart, of how he’d tried to buy his former manager a disability scooter, an absurd act of generosity that he could ill afford. “Paul cried in the service of his country, but it’s far too soon for us to be shedding tears for him,” Robson said then. It still is.

“Newcastle saw the start of him, red-faced and chubby though he was back them,” Sir Bobby once wrote. “He could head the ball, pass it, dribble with it, shoot and he’d train all day. He drove his managers mad, of course, because he never lost that precociousness, his cocky stupidity, his willingness to do anything in search of a quick laugh. But he remained so popular because he was such an innocent.”

I’ve read about the daft stories. The sweet and heart-melting ones, like when he reported for training at Newcastle as a kid, found nobody there because the session had been cancelled and went carol singing to earn his bus fare home. The daftness that became a mania, a compulsion, the addictions which left his body wracked and mind addled. But I do not know if they are fact or legend and do not remember them, because I was not there.

I do not condone the lapses, the appalling behaviour, but do my best not to offer judgments on the private lives of others, for the simple reason that I wouldn’t want judgment on mine. There are exceptions to that, because I’m a hypocrite – Nile Ranger makes my every pore ache – but I try to disassociate Paul Gascoigne the player from whatever “Gazza” now represents.

I’ve written before about the temptations Tyneside offers. I grew up with footballers and flirted on the fringes of that extraordinary life and can remember how it felt to have a drink in your hand with faces turned in your direction, how money and alcohol and testosterone and danger can provide a headlong rush. How being close to home can also feel like Hollywood. It was a blast; less so, when I woke up in a hospital, scabbed and reeking

I’ve been thinking about Gascoigne this week, and it is only partially because of the latest series of photographs and tales, the drinking, and the slurring and another last chance. I thought of him because of Danny Graham, the centre forward who joined Sunderland from Swansea City last month and has been newsworthy because of his boyhood allegiance to Newcastle and the careless way he once expressed it.

I thought of how a career, a life, can be shaped by one action, one comment, one sip, one grave error or, in Gascoigne’s case, one horrendous tackle which led to a compendium of grief. “God knows what he would have gone on to achieve if he hadn’t flung himself so recklessly at Gary Charles, but I think people would have talked about him in the same breath as George Best, Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish,” Robson said.

The connection with Gascoigne is tenuous, at best, but you don’t always know what sets something off and I like the fact that Graham wanted to come home, that he pushed for it to happen in the knowledge that it might cause himself a ripple of difficulty. A story does not have to be set in stone, not yet, and an indiscretion about Sunderland in a Watford fanzine does not have to be his; I wish him a bucketload of goals.

It is difficult not to think about Gascoigne, because he still forms a frame of reference. As Ian Botham’s absence hung over England’s cricket team until the Ashes were claimed and a different standard set, Gascoigne is still the comparison we make; his potential and personality linger. When Jack Wilshere’s performance against Brazil is examined, it is for echoes of his predecessor.

Sir Bobby was a mentor and became a friend, but I’ve never met Gascoigne. I came close to it last May when the statue of Sir Bobby outside St James’, looking out towards the city and Co Durham, was unveiled. He was being interviewed there and I wanted to say something, about the memories he had given, but shied away. He looked shaky and wizened and I doubted he craved saccharine from a journalist.

As Gascoigne has diminished, he has continued to nourish my profession and I do not like that. This is not much of a blog and I apologise for it, because I have nothing to add about alcohol or refueling or treatment centres. I hope he gets well, but cannot begin to understand what responsibility lies with him or where others might have intervened. I’m not interested in casting blame. As I’ve made plain, tediously, I just remember him.

Gascoigne’s narrative is there, in black and white, and it cannot be altered, but I remember him from before then, shirt streaked in the same shades, sun-lamp tanned and shiny, barging across the grass, boisterous and bossy and delicate. I would give a lot to stop the clocks and plot a course back in time for one more of those moments when he hinted at unshackled possibility, but less for his sake. Him doing his job made me want to do mine.

[Shaggy]

What's happened to ****ing embedding on this forum?

Why won't that ****in YouTube link embed?!!

[Bender]

Leave it to the professionals

[ame]http://youtu.be/OcnVn0KVhCs[/ame]

[Shaggy]

How the **** did you get that to embed with the weird youtu.be type link? Normally they don't work and you need the long link?

Anyway - that's a beautiful read on Gascoigne.

[Bender]

How the **** did you get that to embed with the weird youtu.be type link? Normally they don't work and you need the long link?

Anyway - that's a beautiful read on Gascoigne.

is indeed ...as for the embedding on you tube click share under the video and copy ans pate the code .no need to use the link option either on here