Frefall: Paul Gascoigne is struggling to cope with his drug
and alcohol demons
His face a mask of despair, his holdall shambolically
open to reveal a gin bottle and a child's piggy bank, he wanders
dazed and disoriented on the streets of his native Gateshead at
eight in the morning.
This was Paul Gascoigne earlier this week, just two days after
he had been released from the exclusive Priory clinic in South-West
London — where he was treated for depression and paranoia as well
as drug and drink addictions after a reported suicide attempt.
It is simply the latest chapter in the downfall of the man once
regarded as the most sublimely talented footballer of his
generation. And what makes the situation all the more tragic is
that 'Gazza', who once had millions of admirers across the globe,
is facing his demons alone.
He has all but rejected the support of his family, been deserted
by the legions of hangers-on and celebrity friends who were once
always by his side, and received no support from the Football
Association even though he won 57 England caps.
Just 40 years old, he lives today in a twilight world, spending
endless nights in anonymous hotel rooms with only his memories and
addictions for company. He was in Gateshead visiting his
62-year-old father John and his appearance there might have raised
hopes that he was reaching back to his family and friends. But this
is far from the case.
"Gazza may have turned up here this week, but he won't stay,"
said a family friend yesterday. "He'll disappear back to London in
a day or two, I guarantee it, away from everyone who loves him and
cares for him. He's done it before and he'll do it again."
Gascoigne's family looked after him in February after he was
sectioned under the Mental Health Act following a disturbance in a
Newcastle hotel to which the police were called. He went to a
private hospital for treatment for cocaine abuse.
Seeing red: Gazza died his hair bright red, then changed his
mind and had it all shaved off.
During his three-week stay at the hospital near
Darlington, Gascoigne's father John and his 34-year-old sister
Lindsay visited him daily. On his release, his father took the
player back to the house in the Dunston area of Gateshead that
Gascoigne once bought for him — just as he bought houses for his
mother Carol, now divorced from his father but living next door,
and for his other sister Anna, 42, and his brother Carl,
39.
But within a matter of days Gascoigne had left them, returning
to the anonymity of a London hotel room. The player has even
severed his ties with his life-long friend and companion Jimmy
'Five Bellies' Gardner, 42, after an argument about a debt of
£40,000 that the player alleges Gardner hasn't repaid him.
Gascoigne's father John has refused to comment on these latest
tragic episodes in his son's troubled life — while his
step-daughter, Bianca, has only said that his family are now
'powerless' to help him.
There is a growing feeling in the North-East that Gascoigne has
'burnt his boats' there for the final time. "People have lost
patience with him," says one friend. Which perhaps explains why he
seemed so lost as he weaved his way along the middle of that
Gateshead street this week, apparently unsure of where he was or
where he was going.
This bizarre behaviour is nothing new. Just over two weeks ago,
a thin and dishevelled Gascoigne tried to put down a £20,000
deposit on a £140,000 Ferrari at a car showroom in South
Kensington, London, only for this to dissolve into farce when his
trousers fell down to reveal he wasn't wearing any underwear and he
stumbled out of the showroom into the street.
Still intent on his Ferrari, he then had his hair died red to
match the cars' legendary colour — only to change his mind within
hours and have his head shaved. Not long afterwards, Gascoigne was
found smelling of alcohol outside a shop in Kensington, by Gianni
Paladini, chairman of Queens Park Rangers football club. Paladini
gave the player £70 and urged him to "clean up his act".
Leaving rehab: A smoking Gazza outside the priory earlier
this month.
The appeal went unanswered, for the next afternoon
police were called to Gascoigne's £232-a-night room at the
four-star Millennium hotel in Sloane Street, London, not far from
Harrods, after the star allegedly threatened to slit his wrists and
demanded that staff brought him a steak knife. They
refused.
Less than an hour later, eight police officers had to restrain
the "hysterical" Gascoigne when he was found naked in his bath,
screaming: "If I can't cut my wrists I'll drown myself." He was
taken to a nearby hospital.
Gascoigne later transferred himself to the Priory in South-West
London, where he was looked after by therapist John McKeown — whom
Gascoigne always calls 'Johnny Mac'. The two men have been working
together since the player's first admission to the Priory in 1998.
Indeed, the psychotherapist collaborated with the star on his
best-selling memoir, Tackling My Demons. "Johnny's been good for
me," Gascoigne wrote. "The best I've ever had."
For his part, McKeown says: "Paul's back in the cycle of
drinking regularly and in my opinion it has got a hold over him —
and is getting in the way of work opportunities."
But the therapist adds: "He's acknowledged that it's no one
else's fault — which is a positive sign." Positive it may be, but
Gascoigne is still in desperate need of help. And today those
prepared to help him are few and far between. "I can remember ten
years ago standing beside Gazza on the station platform at
Stevenage in Hertfordshire," says one friend, "when he rang the
then manager of Middlesbrough FC, Bryan Robson, and told him he was
going to throw himself on to the track after an argument with his
ex-wife Sheryl."
Robson, the former England and Manchester United captain, got
into his car and drove 300 miles to Stevenage to collect Gascoigne
and take him back to Tyneside. "Nothing has really changed," the
friend continued. "That was a decade ago, but his real friends
won't do that now. They've been through too much."
We can't help him: Gazza's ex-wife Sheryl and step-daughter
Bianca
To understand the torment of this gifted player, we need
to look at the lifestyle he has chosen since his glory days in the
1990s. In the years since the turn of the Millennium, Gascoigne's
career has gone into freefall, with ill-fated expeditions to play
for Gansu Tianma Football Club on the borders of the Gobi desert in
China, for Boston United in Lincolnshire and Algarve United in
Portugal.
It all ended ignominiously in 2005 with his dismissal as manager
of lowly Kettering Town amid accusations of drunkenness. In those
same years his personal life disintegrated, too. His acrimonious
divorce from Sheryl in 1998 — after a two-year marriage in which he
admitted beating her repeatedly and breaking her fingers — seemed
only to speed his decline.
The couple have one son Regan, 11, but Gascoigne adopted his
wife's two children from a previous marriage, Bianca, now 21, and
Mason. Bianca Gascoigne said she and her family had "done
everything in our power to try and get my Dad through this hard
time" but added that he was "seriously ill and it is something we
are powerless to control or help with".
Gascoigne, inevitably, has rejected them. "They can say what
they like about me. I'm not going to let her and Sheryl upset me,"
he said. But without his own family, or his wife's family, the
former footballer is now utterly adrift.
"Gazza's not had a house of his own for seven years," explains
Hunter Davies, who helped the player write his best-selling
autobiography in 2004. "He just travels from hotel to hotel, on his
own, locking himself away for days and days at a time — and turning
off his mobile phone most of the time."
Man of the moment: Paul Gascoigne, in his former guise as
footballer, on the pitch
Gascoigne says he spends his time in the hotels playing
computer games or watching films or daytime television before
ordering room service, although he is also a self-confessed
bulimic, who makes himself sick after eating. And what of his
former friends?
This, remember, is the man who went drinking with the
disc-jockey Chris Evans and radio presenter Danny Baker just an
hour after an England match, still wearing his football kit and
boots. Now, they are nowhere to be seen. Baker's agent, Alex
Armitage, who managed Gascoigne for six months in 2004, insists
that Baker "never talks about his personal life", but there is no
denying they are no longer close.
Armitage is highly critical of the Football Association for
their failure to help Gascoigne. "I think they need to think about
their pastoral care," he told me. "It reflects badly on football
that one of the greats, who graced their game, has had no contact
or support from the FA."
It is a view echoed by Gascoigne's friend, former England
striker Ian Wright, who says the FA should have taken Gascoigne
"under their wing," adding: "He did a lot for football in this
country, so he deserves to get something back."
Certainly, the men who profited from his talents in his pomp
have disappeared from his life. Mel Stein, who acted as his lawyer
and agent for 15 years — until they fell out in an argument over
money — says: "Paul is a troubled man. He's susceptible to
pressure, and he can't handle it."
The same thing happened with Gascoigne's former accountant Len
Lazarus, who also fell out with him over cash. Both Stein and
Lazarus sued the star for money they asserted he owed them. The
cases were settled out of court.
The wretched truth is that, without the support of his peers in
football, or his friends, Gascoigne is left to console himself with
the company of the room service staff in whatever hotel he is
staying — persuading them to go out with him in the evenings for a
drink.
Failed marriage: Paul Gascoigne on his wedding day with
ex-wife Sheryl
"At least they don't sell stories about me to the tabloids," he
says. The now paranoid Gascoigne is convinced that "the tabloid
press is out to get me — they just want to give me a kicking" as
he's put it to a friend.
"It's not true, of course," says Gascoigne's ghost-writer,
Hunter Davies. "The press love him. I've never met a single person
who didn't like him and warm to him, and that includes his former
wife Sheryl, in spite of the terrible times they went through
together."
But Gascoigne is convinced no one can help. "People don't really
understand," he's said. "How can they? I know they love me, all my
family and friends, but they can't do anything for me. There's
nothing they can say that will help."
For now, money is not a problem. In spite of his lengthy stays
at the Cottonwood clinic in Tucson, Arizona as well as the Priory
and the clinic near Darlington — at an estimated cost of £2,000 a
night in each institution — the former player is still said to have
an estimated £2m in a bank account in the Channel Islands, part of
the proceeds of his transfer to the Italian team Lazio in 1996.
But that money cannot last forever.
His most recent stay in the Priory is Gascoigne's eighth spell
in a rehab clinic in the past six years —and that is on top of a
major hip operation and private hospital treatment for
pneumonia.
Predictably, the star has repeatedly refused to take the
medication prescribed after his hip operation and for his
depression — "I know I've been neglecting my medication," he
admits.
And even when he does take it, he ignores his doctor's
recommendation not to mix the drugs with alcohol. Paul Gascoigne is
a man in the grip of the bleakest despair. And to judge the depth
of that despair you have only to look back at something he wrote
barely a year ago.
"Not topped myself yet," he said.
"That's a good thing. Obviously. Still being here is one thing,
but it hasn't been easy. I've been struggling. Big Time. Paranoid.
Depressed." Let us hope and pray that there is someone who can help
this tragic sporting genius, be it his therapist, his family, his
former friends in the North-East, or the Football Association.
Surely someone can save Gazza from himself.
