England Legends - Paul Gascoigne

As a festive treat, TheFA.com has a series of seven articles with England Legends, one from each of the match programmes in 2007, today it's Paul Gascoigne;

If there is a year zero for English football as we know it – the English football of packed stadiums, St George’s flags fluttering from car windows and international players as the biggest celebrities in the land – it is 1990.

It’s easy to forget that before this one golden summer, English expectations for football success had been low. Arriving in Italy, it would have been impossible to predict that four weeks later the team would be returning home as heroes, that the English game would begin a long, glorious renaissance, and that Paul Gascoigne would become the most famous footballer in England.

For Gascoigne, suddenly immortalised as 'Gazza', life would never be the same again.

“I remember being on the plane home,” he said. “And Bobby Robson just said to me, quietly, ‘You be careful now, Paul’. I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t realise what people were feeling back home.

"We landed at Luton, and as we got off the plane, we couldn’t believe what we saw. There must have been 100,000 fans at the airport. The noise was unbelievable. We got on the bus and some fella tried to grab the fourth-place medal off my neck. I wasn’t prepared for it at all. It was mad, and it never really eased up.”

It’s little wonder that things seemed out of hand for Gascoigne: he’d played his first game for England just two seasons earlier.

“It happened so fast for me with England that I never had any time to get nervous,” he says.

“It was a blur. Just five years before I’d been playing youth team football for Newcastle, in front of 100 people. And before that just kicking a ball around Dunston with my mates. Then it was quick progress through the Newcastle first team, then Spurs, then England. I didn’t have time to think too much, or get nervous, which was a good thing.”

Gazza made his debut in the friendly against Denmark in September 1988, and immediately felt at home in the Three Lions shirt. “I remember running on the sidelines with Tony Cottee, getting ready to go on against Denmark," he says. 

"I was buzzing so much, and I kept asking him, ‘Are you excited?’ It was the best feeling in the world to be playing for England and at Wembley. It was unbelievable really.”

Far from being overawed by the occasion, Gascoigne excelled. “I always had confidence and was never afraid of anyone,” he says. “Bobby just told me to get out there and get a goal. I loved every minute. And in my next game against Albania, we won 5-0. I scored, and set up a couple. To score for England was too much to take in. I just couldn’t wait to get back to Newcastle and tell everyone about it! I knew I could perform on that stage.”

He had soon struck up an instinctive midfield partnership with one of his England heroes, Bryan Robson. “He’s the best I ever played with,” he remembers. “He understood how we could work together. Bryan just said to me: ‘I’ll take all the tackles and bruises, you go out there and play’. We complemented each other.”

Nevertheless, Gascoigne was not guaranteed a place in England’s starting eleven as the World Cup loomed. “It wasn’t until Neil Webb got injured that I thought: I’m going to get a game in Italy. I suddenly realised that this was my chance.”

What happened next is indelibly marked in the memory of every England supporter. At Italia 90, Gascoigne was England’s – and arguably the tournament’s – best player. He ran the midfield with skill, vision and passion. His free-kick picked out Mark Wright to score the only goal against Egypt, allowing England to scrape through their group; his pin-point chip to David Platt settled the tense first knockout game against Belgium; his surging runs guaranteed Cameroon a torrid time in the Quarter-Finals.

And yet, inevitably,he is still remembered for the tears during the Semi-Final defeat to Germany in Turin. “I had a good game, and I felt I got the better of Lothar Matthaus – who Bobby Robson had told me was the best midfielder in the world,” he says. “We were a great side – the best I played in, and I’m sure we would have won the final if we had made it through.

“But I suppose the main image people have of me is standing in the middle of the Stadio Delle Alpi, weeping,” he admits. “The instant the ref waved that yellow card in front of my nose, I knew that no matter the result, my World Cup was over. My eyes filled up. My mind had gone – as Gary Lineker indicated to the manager.”

“I was devastated. I felt I’d let myself down. The World Cup had been a brilliant, all-expenses paid holiday. I felt like I was at the best youth club ever! Great weather, great food, great hotels, great pals and the occasional game of football. I didn’t want it to end.”

In Turin, though, it did end – in the all-too familiar manner of penalties. “I should have taken a penalty,” laughs Gazza. “At least I could have got a pizza advert out of it and made some money!”

England, however, wouldn’t perform well at a major tournament for another six years. What should have been Gascoigne’s prime was marred by a series of shattering injuries, and in the absence of their most influential player, the Three Lions underperformed at Euro 92, going out in the group stages, and failed to qualify for USA 1994.

“I like to think I could have been the difference in those tournaments, but unfortunately it wasn’t to be,” says Gascoigne. “But Euro 96 made up for it. To play at home, at Wembley, with such a great atmosphere, was amazing.”

The tournament, predictably, produced another defining Gazza moment, this time an incredible solo goal against Scotland. “People often ask me whether that’s the best goal I’ve ever scored, and it was a memorable one. Although I still feel like I could score that goal now, I can tell you! It was one of the best, although I scored one or two in Italy that never get shown on TV which were just as good.

“In terms of what the goal meant though, you couldn’t beat it. I was playing in Scotland for Rangers at the time. I had taken a beasting about the game, so it was really sweet. And to have 70,000 odd fans singing your name is just unbelievable. The game against Holland stood out even more, though. To win 4-1 against such a top nation was really something, and I felt it was one of my best performances in an England shirt.”

Gascoigne’s international career was drawing to a close, however. After playing a part in England’s qualifying campaign for the 1998 World Cup, Glenn Hoddle did not select him for the final squad. “It was upsetting,” says Gascoigne. He never played for his country again.

Gazza played his last game of professional football – for Boston United – in 2004. He still misses the dressing room environment and hopes to get back into the game he loves. “It would be great to be involved in football again,” he says. “I’m taking it slowly, talking to a few people in the game and looking at doing my badges.”

In the meantime, Gascoigne is enjoying his fishing and even doing some training at the Newcastle Academy as part of his rehabilitation. (“It’s nice to kick a ball about, but I think the old injuries are taking their toll.”) He has not yet visited the new Wembley, but hopes to soon. “The old place was special,” he says.

He’s content with the memory of being the man who changed the face of England’s national sport and who humanised a beleaguered game. There’s just one condition though: “People always go on about the tears,” he says of that night in Turin. “But I hope they remember me for the football, too.”