The true story behind Paul Gascoigne’s problems. And do NOT blame football, writes IAN LADYMAN

Paul Gascoigne’s autobiography was named Sports Book of the Year in 2004, and with good reason. It’s completely convincing.

On receiving the award, Gascoigne said: “This is the third I have won in two years. I also beat alcohol and drugs. I hope it’s for life’.

This week on the High Performance Podcast, Gascoigne revealed that hope was in vain. Once again consumed and defeated by the demons that have long plagued him, the former Tottenham, Newcastle and England midfielder has been sleeping in his agent’s guest room and once again trying to take solace in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

“I’m a sad drunk,” he said.

Few people touch the sporting soul of this country as directly as Gascoigne. When a message like that comes out, it takes us all out of the wind. Not again, Gazza, not again.

At his peak and in his splendor – running with the ball at his feet with his elbows up – Gascoigne was the best of us. Courageous, free, uninhibited, instinctive and pushing upwards. Gascoigne was joy. Gascoigne was liberation.

So yeah, that’s why it still hurts every time we see him like that. Even now that we’re all desperately and morbidly used to it. Because Gascoigne’s vulnerabilities are also real for us. Fear, loneliness, temptation. They are problems for everyone.

And from all this continues to emerge an enduring misconception, a belief that football did for Gascoigne, that celebrities got to him and pulled him down. Oh, Paul. You would have been fine if the bright lights hadn’t blinded you.

The truth is, nothing could be more wrong. Indeed, the opposite is completely true. For Gascoigne, a troubled lad from the North East, football was pretty much the safest place he’s ever been. It is not without reason that one of the first chapters of that book – beautifully and painfully depicted by the great football chronicler Hunter Davies – is called ‘Football to the Rescue’.

On Thursday I returned to the pages to remind myself of the difficulties and horrors of Gascoigne’s childhood. “What has bothered me all my life is a disease in my head,” writes Gascoigne, sparing us no details.

From the age of seven, Gascoigne was consumed by the fear of dying. In his teenage years, he counted nine different physical tics that plagued him. He pulled at his skin. He blinked constantly. He kicked the ground when he walked, fearing what would happen if he didn’t. He was so afraid of the dark – and especially of being alone – that he slept with the light on. He was bulimic. He was obsessed with numbers. He stole. He became obsessed with slot machines.

Once – just once – he was taken to a psychiatrist, but he didn’t understand and his father probably didn’t help. “Bloody stupid,” was Gascoigne senior’s view of it all.

There was also death. A friend’s younger brother – a small child – was hit by a car and killed as ten-year-old Gascoigne took him to the sweet shop. His cousin died playing football. Another friend died on a construction site. Gascoigne blamed himself for all this. Every piece.

And hidden beneath all this confusion, fear and anxiety, lay talent, a talent so deep and so easy that it gave us the most seductive and uplifting English footballer many of us have ever seen.

Yes, football and some of what came with it played on Gascoigne’s desperate naivety and weakness. The English game in the 1980s and 1990s could be straightforward both on and off the field. Some form of player care may have helped him.

He probably could have done without a few of those nights out with Chris Evans and Danny Baker. But football did not lead Gascoigne to the many dark places he has visited since he stopped playing. According to his own frank confessions, he was on his way there anyway.

For years, his profession protected Gascoigne from the worst of himself and even others. Glenn Roeder and Chris Waddle in Newcastle. Jack Charlton was then manager of that same great club. Sir Bobby Robson. Terry Venables. They all played their part. They were teammates and coaches first and foremost. But protection was never far from the core of what they did.

When you close your eyes and think of Gascoigne, what do you see? To me he’s wearing the white Tottenham shirt, moving forward with brutal grace, glistening with the utter certainty of where he was going and what he was doing and why.

Beyond all that, far away from the safety of all that grass, Gascoigne had none of that comfort and security. He was always that scared young man who was so scared of the flight on his first trip to England Under-21s that he held the club doctor’s hand all the way there.

Off the football field, Gazza was not the clown he wanted us to see. Not a bit of it. So when you see him now or think about him, worry about him and, above all, hope in him. But don’t blame his chosen life for what he is. Because he always was. He was always there.

As he himself wrote twenty years ago: ‘I was not nervous or worried about death when I was playing football.’

He’s only 23!

Erling Haaland says he hasn’t committed his long-term future to Manchester City and, honestly, why would he? He is 23 years old.

Referees should be supported, not shamed

There are two things on my mind following Paul Tierney’s inability to restart the match properly towards the end of Liverpool’s late and controversial win at Nottingham Forest.

First of all, there is a procedure. After referee Tierney accidentally gave the ball to Liverpool instead of Forest after stopping play for a main review, why weren’t his assistants, fourth official or members of the VAR team allowed to point out his mistake? The protocol that prevents the game from being stopped and reset after an error is noticed needs to change.

Second, what purpose does it serve to publicly shame Tierney by pulling him from regular duty this weekend?

Tierney will be the VAR for Arsenal’s match against Brentford on Saturday and PGMOL has no problem with this being interpreted as some sort of punishment or sanction.

It is ridiculous. Referees need support and support when they make mistakes. Instead, they are pushed head first into the stocks.

Keane’s absence is a loss for our game

When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was sacked by Manchester United in November 2021, his former captain Roy Keane took a plane to Oslo. When he got there, he drove eight hours to Solskjaer’s hometown of Kristiansund on Norway’s west coast.

“I wanted to see if he was okay,” Keane said this week.

The more we learn about Keane, the more layers we see. He remains, in whatever form, a loss to the coaching and development side of our game.

Ramsdale returns

It was on September 17 at Everton that Mikel Arteta named David Raya in his Premier League team for the first time, at the expense of Aaron Ramsdale.

The Arsenal manager explained the decision by claiming that he planned to rotate his goalkeepers and would even consider switching them during matches depending on the circumstances.

It sounded like nonsense at the time and it turned out to be so. Ramsdale have played just one league match since that day and that was against Brentford in November. Raya is on loan from the West London club and therefore cannot play against them.

The reserve matches start at the Emirates on Saturday, so Ramsdale will be back in action. Arsenal will top the Premier League if they win and as such this is a huge game. Arteta needs his goalkeeper and it will be fascinating to see how things go.