Dear Paul
I wish I’d had a pound for everyone who has stopped and asked me about you this week. Have you got any idea how popular you still are? And you know what they all say? ‘Is there anything we can do?’ Of course, there isn’t a lot of any us can do except hope and pray you have the good sense and strong will to listen to the professional experts who can help you turn life around.
We share a long history, so you know I speak from the heart, but also from the head. It was me who labelled you as ‘daft as a brush’ and you were. I also remember the reaction you got when we came back from the World Cup in 1990. You were an absolute icon, the darling of the country. It was as if you were the national cuddly toy.
But you haven’t been that bright, bubbly, infectious personality for a while now. Do you remember you rang me a month ago and we made arrangements for you to come over to the house the next day? I was looking forward to it but you never showed. The sad thing is that I wasn’t really surprised. We’ve come to expect you being unreliable and that wasn’t the old Gazza.
You can turn your life around and football, the only thing you really know, can be your salvation. But there are some important battles you need to win first.
You can’t continue in your life with drink and drugs. You have to cut them out completely and get then out of your system. Otherwise you have no chance, like George Best. He died too young and if you don’t change, so might you.
The worry is that you will really damage yourself. It’s why the news that you’re now under professional supervision has been a comfort to those who love you, even if it has been distressing as well. You must have bloody demons inside you and nobody can pretend it will be easy.
But I remember how strong-willed you were as a player on the pitch. Now you have to be even stronger in your personal life. As a player, you did manage responsibility, so it’s somewhere there in your nature.
I know you must miss playing football. We have all had to adjust. But in the end you have to find something to replace the buzz and excitement of scoring a goal or winning a match.
I think if you find a job in football that you can do well, it will restore a lot of pride. And there are things you could do because you have an excellent football brain. You know the game from A to Z and back again.
Let’s not beat about the bush, you aren’t management material but you have the enthusiasm and ability to communicate to coach kids some of the skills you had.
I remember you popping in to see us as Newcastle and it was very natural the way you got a group of boys together and showed them how to turn in two touches, how to roll your foot over the ball. This country is crying out for good young coaches-in many ways they are more important than first-team managers-so why not set it out as a long-term target as you start your rehabilitation?
I also know you are prone to periods of self-pity at times but you’re got to appreciate in a way how lucky you have been. Any player who has enough had games will be dropped eventually. And anyone other than you would have ended uo in jarl by now if they’d done half the things you have. But because it’s you, people are always willing to give you another chance.
You have to appreciate that and try to prove then right to have given you that chance.
Naturally, my mind has gone back to Italia 90 this week, in many ways the peak of both of our careers. You were a big kid really; bright, energetic, precocious, a bundle of fun. You were the heartbeat of the side, off the field as well as on it. A World Cup is full of pressure and tension but you managed to squash that with your merriment.
I still smile at the way you would follow me round like a lapdog. I’d finish a press conference have a Coca-Cola at the bar. You’s be there behind me. I would move the pool and within 15 seconds, you’d be pulling up the Lilo next to me. “Gazza, you’re like my bloody shadow,’ I ‘d say. But we all loved having you around.
I also remember chastising you in Sardinia for driving a golf buggy over the bunkers and putting green. Anyone else would have been thrown off the course but you just got a telling-off.
There was nothing malicious in your behaviour, you were just a silly, giggly boy who hadn’t grown up. But now you have to grow up. And you can grow yo, be a proper father with your own home rather than living with friends or in a hotel. It’s time for Gaza t become Paul Gascoigne.
Best Wishes
Bobby
1990 - Italy
Semi-finals
Manager: Bobby Robson
Bobby Robson’s team topped their group, ahead of the Republic of Ireland, Holland and Egypt, and David Platt’s 119th minute strike carried them through against Belgium in the second round. Then, Gary Lineker converted two penalties in a 3-2 success against Cameroon in the quarter-finals. But, in a match made famous for Gazza's tears, there was more heartache as Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle missed in a penalty shoot-out, which West Germany won 4-3. England lost 2-1 to Italy in the match to decide third and fourth places in the competition.
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