Gazza: My Story (12 page)

Jess the Cat came over and shook my hand, which I thought was funny. I decided to go one better and have a wrestle in the goalmouth with Yogi Bear. While I was cavorting about with the Bear, I kicked the Cat up the backside. It was only meant to be a friendly tap, but of course I was wearing football boots, so I struck her – it turned out to be a woman – a bit harder than I’d intended. All the same, I never thought she’d claim I had injured her, which she did afterwards, demanding an apology.

The match itself got into a bit of a punch-up when I lashed out wildly at Eddie McGoldrick. It was a bout of handbags that resulted in me getting booked. I was terrified I would be suspended and out of the England reckoning.

Around that same time, in a Cup game against Tranmere, I hit a ball which went straight at a cameramen and broke his glasses. The papers claimed I had done it
deliberately. I’m not that skilful. It was an accident, but no one believed that. I apologised to the photographer and promised to buy him a drink, but that didn’t stop some Tranmere fans writing to Spurs and the FA about my behaviour, saying I shouldn’t be picked for Spurs or England.

On the World Cup trail, England ended up second in our group, one point behind Sweden. England were on their way to Italy, but was Paul Gascoigne going with them? I was starting to get worried.

Bobby came to see me a few times for Spurs, to check me out. I was picked for a B international against Yugoslavia when I thought I should have been in the first team, but I did what manager Dave Sexton wanted and afterwards Bobby said at a press conference that I had behaved myself. But then he was pushed into talking about who he would pick in the middle for England alongside Bryan Robson. ‘The man who plays with Robson,’ he was quoted as saying, ‘has to have brains and discipline. He has to be able to work out when to go and when to stay, when to take chances. I’m not saying Gascoigne hasn’t got a brain, but he still has to learn when to use it.’

Well, that was a bit of a sickener. The tabloids
naturally took this to mean that I didn’t have a brain, and I began to fear that Bobby was going to prefer David Platt or Steve McMahon in midfield to me. Bobby, to be fair, did take me aside before the Czechoslovakia game in April 1990 to tell me that I would be playing from the start, which was good of him, and reassuring for me. But I got the distinct feeling this might be my last chance, which was less reassuring.

Tottenham played Man United at White Hart Lane before that England match, and not surprisingly, I was very hyped up, wanting to show not only Bobby but also Alex Ferguson
how good I was. I played one of my best games for Spurs, especially in the first half. I got a good goal and made one for Gary Lineker. The look on Fergie’s face at half-time was a reward in itself. We held on in the second half and won 2–1.

Bobby Robson had first described me as ‘daft as a brush’ when talking to Dave Sexton during the Albania match, but in the run-up to our clash with Czechoslovakia he repeated this pronouncement in public. I turned up for England training the next day with a brush stuck down my sock. He did laugh at that. Later he had a quiet word with me, and told me that this was my chance to prove myself, to let everyone see how good I was. As he had promised, I started against the Czechs.

For the first twenty minutes I ran around like a headless chicken and was lucky not to get booked, but then I settled down. I set up two for Steve Bull and took the corner from which Stuart Pearce scored. Then I did a one-two with Tony Dorigo, beat two and thrashed it into the net. We won 4–2, and some of the papers which had earlier called me a ‘chaotic presence’ were now saying I was an ‘irresistible force’. It was no doubt that match that secured my place in Bobby’s final World Cup twenty-two.

Before we left for Italy I went up to Newcastle to say cheerio to my family and friends. We had a farewell drink in a local bar. I was quite sober when this lad came up to me in the car park as I was leaving and said he was going to get me. I replied that I never hit a man with glasses, and he took off his specs and had a swing at me. I hit him once, on the nose, to stop him hitting me any more, and he ran off. The next day there were headlines about ‘World Cup wallies’ all over the place. Looking back, I think that incident might have been a set-up. But that didn’t occur to me at the time. In spite of my brush with the Swedish stalker, I was not yet wise to the ways of the media world.

I discovered on the evening of 24 May, the night before the England squad was due to fly out to our World Cup camp in Sardinia, that I’d left my passport in Newcastle. We were leaving first thing in the morning. I rang Jimmy and he drove through the night to bring it to me, arriving just in time.

So my World Cup didn’t get off to a brilliant start, but it wasn’t as bad a start as Bobby Robson was having. Just as he was trying to get us all organised to go off for the finals, there had suddenly been lots of stories in the press about his personal life. Then I felt the FA handled his contract very badly, and there had been leaks to the press suggesting that they were already looking for a replacement for him.

The upshot was that before the World Cup finals had even begun, we knew that he was going; that he would no longer be the England manager after it was all over, whatever happened. Instead he would be going abroad, to manage PSV Eindhoven. It was not the ideal atmosphere in which to launch a World Cup campaign, and I felt very sorry for him.

Two days after we arrived, it was my twenty-third birthday. The lads presented me with a special chocolate birthday cake beside the pool at our hotel. Chris
Waddle did the handing-over honours – and smashed it right in my face. It’s a good job I’ve always liked chocolate. In the evening, at the team dinner, I found that Bobby Robson had ordered a special birthday cake for me as well. This one had a brush on top.

On 2 June, we went off for a warm-up game in Tunisia. When I gave the ball away and they scored, I was convinced I’d blown it, that I wouldn’t be in the starting team for the first game. But afterwards Bobby saw how depressed I was and put his arm round me. He was good at man-management. He knew when to be ready with a joke, and when to boost your confidence.

Our first game in the World Cup finals was to be in Cagliari in Sardinia, against the Republic of Ireland, managed by Jack Charlton, my old boss at Newcastle. After taking the job he’d asked me if I had an Irish wolfhound. I said no, I hadn’t – but why was he interested? ‘If you had an Irish wolfhound, you could qualify to play for Ireland.’

During the World Cup, I roomed with Chris Waddle, which was of course a big pleasure for him. At least he already knew what he was dealing with: that I could never sleep without the light and the TV on. He
moaned, of course, but we were good mates, so he put up with me. He’d wait till I’d fallen asleep, then he’d get up and switch off the light and the television.

In the mornings, he’d get his own back. The moment he woke up, he’d put on his sound system really loud. You could hear people all down the corridor, Shilton and Butcher and all the others, telling him to turn the fucking thing down.

I was always up early, usually straight out of the patio door and into the pool. Then I’d be looking for someone to play a game with – table tennis, snooker, golf, whatever. I loved being at the World Cup. It was everything I ever wished for, how I wanted life to be. Not just the football, and being in the finals, but being with the lads twenty-four hours a day. I always had someone to play with, and there was always some sort of activity going on. I didn’t have to worry about boring domestic things or me house or girlfriends. I could escape all that, leave my responsibilities behind.

At Spurs, when training was finished, I’d come home and have nothing to do. Feeling bored, I’d do daft things just to avoid sitting around, stuck on my own with my awful thoughts and worries and obsessions. Often I’d just have a drink to blot it all out for the rest
of the day, till it was time for training again. So being away at the World Cup was brilliant for me.

One day, wandering round our hotel in Sardinia, Peter Beardsley happened to spot the secret place where Norman Medhurst and Fred Street, the physios, kept their bars of chocolate. They used to give us one each in the evenings, that was our allowance, for sugar and energy. They had also stashed away various World Cup goodies, wallets and things, to be given out to kids, visitors and VIPs.

When Peter told me he had discovered this secret cupboard, I begged him to show me where it was. I begged and begged, promising, of course, that I would tell no one. The minute he showed me, I went straight back to my room and told Chris. We both immediately went to the cupboard and helped ourselves to some of the stuff. Not too much – we didn’t want them to notice. We kept on going back to what we called Gazza’s Aladdin’s Cave. We were pissing ourselves every time we came back with our treasure.

Beardsley came into our room one day, spotted some of the England stuff and realised instantly where we’d got it from. He was terrified he would get the blame. Norman and Fred did find out in the end. We
were told off and they moved their stash to another hiding place.

Being at the World Cup, or at any big tournament, is like being on holiday. I loved everything about it, even all the training. I was first on the pitch and last off it every day. I’d get local kids to take shots at me in goal when everyone else had packed up. I wanted it to go on for ever, and then I’d never have to face real life. And it hadn’t even properly begun yet.

We played Ireland in our first game of the 1990 World Cup finals on 11 June and drew 1–1. Gary Lineker scored our goal. It wasn’t a brilliant game, but it was very tough. Then we got a 0–0 draw against Holland, who were viewed as the favourites as they had such wonderful players, people like Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Ronald Koeman and Frank Rijkaard. During that match, I asked Van Basten how much he was earning. I also pulled Ruud Gullit’s hair to see what it felt like. He had dreadlocks at the time. ‘Is that nice?’ he asked me. ‘Lovely,’ I replied. I did my Cruyff turn, which some of the papers thought was new. Others thought I was doing it as a wind-up. But I had performed it before – it was just
that it had never been commented on. The score, 0–0, makes it sound a dull game, but we played with poise and concentration and I felt at home on the world stage.