Gazza: My Story (44 page)

That last time, she said I could stay as long as I was sober. I’ve kept to that, not a drink in over two years. It was arguments about money which finally did it. That’s what caused the final split, not me drinking or any bad behaviour. I never touched her, or even physically threatened her, never once, after that scene in Gleneagles in 1996. She’s at least admitted that herself.

When I was staying with Shel, she did help me sort out all my papers, which were in a mess, and I was grateful. While I was with her, still on medication, trying to get better, she suddenly started saying, ‘Why don’t you go out and get a job, why don’t you do some work?’ Perhaps she was right. As I said earlier, I do need to go out and work now.

Anyway, last year, in January 2004, my Newcastle
lawyer went properly into all my finances and affairs and we went to the High Court in London to try and get the maintenance payments reduced. And we succeeded.

A year later, in February 2005, we went back to court again, because I didn’t think the payments I was making were fair when I had no regular income. This time I agreed to a lump sum, so that’s it as far as me paying Shel is concerned. We negotiated, and the upshot was that I paid her £235,000. I was able to get that money together because of this book, so thanks to those who bought the hardback version, and I also cashed in a bit of my Channel Islands money. Which I didn’t want to do. That’s all I have left from my football career and, as I told you earlier, I was advised to put it in US dollars, so I lose money by taking any out at the moment.

I’m still paying for the children but that’s been reduced as well. It is now £3,800 a month until Mason and Regan leave full-time education. I don’t have to pay for Bianca any more as she’s left school.

I’ve recently found myself lying awake at night, trying to work out how much I’ve paid to Shel over the last fifteen years. Most of it was my choice of course –
holidays, jewellery, cash to help her out, help with buying a house, presents (including that time-share lodge in Scotland I gave her after we were divorced – crazy or what?), cars, that sort of thing. It made me happy and I loved her. And then the divorce payments I’ve talked about before. It comes to a pretty big number.

Thinking about all that, it’s funny (not really), but when you look at the facts, we were only married for two years – from July 1996 to August 1998 when we got divorced. During those two years, I estimate, because of all the rows and separations, in fact we only lived as a married couple for three and a half months. I know we were on and off together for a few years before that, but it makes you think. And after it all she’s ended up today with a house in Hertfordshire worth £1.2 million. Talk about
Footballers’ Wives
.

After my book appeared, in which I said nothing personal against her, she gave a big interview to
Hello!
, over ten pages, slagging me off. That’s why I now feel justified in pointing out a few things. She said I wasn’t the great guy I made myself out to be in my book. Jee-sus. I can’t believe she read it. I couldn’t have made it clearer what a bad, mad, daft guy I had been, and I dragged no one else into it, blaming only myself. In
Hello!
, she also claimed I hit her when she was pregnant, which is totally untrue.

There were also photographs of her posing with the kids, my kids, which is how I have always looked upon them, even though only Regan is my son. I didn’t like that, putting our kids on show, dragging them into our row. It’s not, of course, the first time she’s gone to the press over the years. She’ll probably do it again now, but as she’s already said all the bad things she can about me, several times, and so have I, I can’t think what else remains to be said.

You’ll notice she still calls herself Gascoigne. ‘Sheryl Gascoigne – ex-wife of Paul Gascoigne’, so she gets billed. She loves it. If she hated me so much, for all the bad things I did, why didn’t she go back to her maiden name, or her first married name? I did ask her that once, when we’d split yet again. She says it’s because of Regan. He’s called Gascoigne, so she doesn’t want to be different. That’s her story. But it’s interesting that she’s never written an article or sold a story about her first husband. It’s always about me.

Everybody always told me she wasn’t right for me, but I never believed it. I told people to shut up, even my own family and friends. But it also happened in
football. Almost every manager told me to call it a day. I was obsessed by her, but it was doing me harm, and doing her no good either, so they all said. But I ignored them.

At La Manga, when Hoddle chucked me out of the England team, there had just been a nonsense story in the papers about Shel. As usual, that sent me almost insane, as everyone in the squad could see. It might well have been one of the reasons why Hoddle later said ‘my head was not right’. He knew I was worrying about her.

When I talk to Regan on the phone at home, she’s always in the background, I can hear her. But when he’s at school, and she’s not around, he talks to me a lot. There are no problems. I’ve visited his school and I took a spelling class. I asked the teacher and he said fine. The kids came up and I checked their spelling. All the kids loved it. And so did Regan.

I’m sorry to go on about Shel so much. I just don’t seem to escape, which is why I decided to talk about her, in a way I have never done before. It’s also because I’m still living with the consequences. I haven’t had sex for over a year now. I don’t miss it, not really. I’ve got used to it. For the moment.

I forgot to tell you last time about one romantic interlude. It began in 2000, just after I’d joined Everton.
I took Hazy – David Hayes – and another of my old Newcastle friends to Miami for a fishing and drinking holiday.

We were in our hotel one night and I saw this stunning blonde sitting at the bar, on her own. I stared at her for about an hour, without getting any response. I was gutted when this guy appears, obviously her fella.

We then went off to another bar, the Flamingo on South Beach, where I got talking to a girl from Manchester. As I’m talking to her, the stunning blonde I had seen in our hotel suddenly appears – with Hazy’s arm round her. I think fucking hell, how has he managed it? I go over and he says he’s talked her into coming to see me, because I’d said she was so stunning. I chat to her and then we go back to our hotel, where we’re both staying. I have a cigar, she has a cigar, and we both sit there talking in the reception area till about four in the morning.

Then suddenly her bloke appears. He gets out of the lift in his boxer shorts, looking furious. I ask him if he’d like a drink with me and my girlfriend. Just to wind him up. He tells me he’s a lawyer, from somewhere like Philadelphia, down in Miami for an important case, and he has to be up early in the morning. I say, ‘Oh, a lawyer, I could always do with a good lawyer, can I hire you?’
He grabs the girl by the hand and pulls her into the lift. They disappear.

During our chat, I had found out her name was Lina, she was Russian, and I’d got her mobile phone number. Nothing happened between us. I’d not even kissed her, never mind shag her. A year passed. During that time I’d been thinking of her, remembering how stunning she was, what a good chat we had, so one day I decided to ring her. This was after I’d left Burnley – before I went to China. So some time in the spring of 2002.

‘Hi, I’m Paul, we met in Miami’, and after a bit she said, ‘Oh aye, I remember you. You told me you were a footballer. My friend looked you up and she told me you were a bad person.’ I said, ‘Ignore all that, it’s newspaper stuff. I’m a nice guy really.’

Anyway I talked her into seeing me again. It turned out she was returning to Russia. She’d been living with this rich American lawyer for about four years, but was now going back to Moscow.

When I’d first met her, I’d asked her what she was doing with that fat bastard. She said, ‘That’s funny, those are the exact words your friend used.’ She told me the lawyer was a nice guy, and he looked after her well.

Two days later, I booked a plane to Moscow and went off to see Lina. I did have a few drinks on the plane, and was probably a bit noisy and stupid. When I was going through passport control, these two huge guys grabbed hold of me. I thought I’d been reported for causing some sort of commotion on the plane, but the real reason was that I didn’t have a visa for Russia. I hadn’t realised you had to have one.

I was put in jail, a proper jail, but it was inside the airport. I was told I was allowed to make one phone call – one only. Should I ring me dad? Over the years, I’ve usually rung him when I’m in trouble. Or should I ring the British Embassy? See if they can sort out the visa problem. Or should I ring Lina? She was supposed to be meeting me, and she was Russian, could speak to them in their own language.

I was shitting myself, all alone, not knowing what to do. Eventually I decided to ring Lina. I rang her number – and got her mum, who couldn’t speak a word of English. Every time I said ‘Lina’, she said ‘Airport’. I realised she was somewhere at the airport, waiting for me, but not knowing I was in jail.

An hour went by, then two, three, then at four in the morning one of the jailers says, ‘There’s a woman
outside for you.’ I ask what kind of woman. They say she’s blonde and Russian. I says it must be Lina.

Lina explains the whole story to them, that it was ignorance that made me not get the visa. They agreed I could spend twenty-four hours in Moscow, but then I must be deported.

We book into a hotel and have a wonderful night together. In the morning, instead of me going off on my own, I suggested to her that she come with me. We could have a romantic holiday together.

So I ring BA, book flights on my credit card, and we go to Miami. We arrive and book into a hotel. We had ten brilliant days together. Very romantic. I gave her flowers, chocolates, everything. It turned out she had been married, to a Russian, but that the marriage had long since finished.

At the end of the ten days, we parted. She went back to Moscow, in tears. I flew to London. We did ring each other for about four months, then it sort of tailed off. I haven’t had any contact with her for over a year now, but I still think about her. She was a stunning girl.

One point about telling you this story is that it was interesting, and upsetting, that she’d looked me up – and found I was a bad lad. When I was in China, I
was asked to be the judge for a fashion show. I got the winner’s number and later rang her up, saying it would be nice to have a drink with her. She said her friend had looked me up on the web – and found out I was a bad man. Fucking hell. This was Lanzhou, in the back of beyond in China. What chance have I got?

What happens is that I worry that no nice girls will come near me. I’m a bastard, ain’t I? I’ve said so. Now Shel has said so. Must be true. So who wants to get mixed up with someone with my problems who might beat them up? I know I haven’t harmed anyone, or done anything bad to anyone for almost ten years, and I know I’ll never do so again. But other people don’t know that.

So I imagine that any girl who does come along, makes advances and that, will just be a gold digger, who’ll turn me over, take my money and sell their story. I do seem to have attracted them, especially when I was drunk, which of course doesn’t happen any more. I’m so fucking sober and sensible these days, I’ve been keeping away from all women, whatever their motives. So I haven’t been looking for another relationship.

Now my financial relationship with Shel has been settled, and I don’t have to pay her any more, a huge weight is off my shoulders – financially and
emotionally. I can now sit down, see where I’m at, look at what I’ve got left and what I might be earning in the future. This summer I’m planning to buy something, either the flat I’ve rented in Jesmond or a little house. When I’ve settled down domestically, I might then be open to meeting some nice lass. I might come across her anywhere, up in Newcastle in the queue at the fish and chip shop back in Dunston, or in Jesmond.

But there’s one thing that still worries me. It came to me the other day. I said it to Jimmy – and he couldn’t believe it. In fact I’m shitting myself that it might turn out to come true. If Shel were to ring me up tomorrow, when I come out of here, and ask me to come back, you know what, I’d probably say yes. Fucking hell. I’m a daft enough bastard, even now, to be tempted. After all we’ve put each other through. Let’s hope it won’t happen.

Right, I’m not talking about Shel again. That’s it, for ever. By talking like this, at long last, I’ve got her out of my system. And I know she’s better off without me. So good luck to her.

Here’s the doctor to do some tests. All I’m having now is an injection into my neck. They’re going to put me under, see if they can relieve the pain in the discs.
I should be out tomorrow. And then off to Newcastle. Perhaps I might strike lucky in the fish queue …

PAUL GASCOIGNE

Paul John Gascoigne, born Dunston, Gateshead 27 May 1967.

CAREER

Redheugh Boys’ Club, Dunston juniors, trials for Ipswich Town, Middlesbrough, Southampton. Newcastle United schoolboy 1980, apprentice 1983, professional 1985. Transferred to Tottenham Hotspur June 1988 £2.3 million. Transferred to Lazio May 1992 £5.5 million. Transferred to Rangers July 1995 £4.3 million. Transferred to Middlesbrough March 1998 £3.45 million. Free to Everton July 2000. Free to Burnley March 2002. Washington DC (trial) 2002. Free to Gansu Tianma 2003. Wolverhampton Wanderers (reserves) 2003. Non-contract player-coach Boston United July to October 2004.