Off the fence
Daniel Carey
I WAS thinking about Paul Gascoigne even before he turned up in Rothbury on Friday night, claiming to be a friend of fugitive Raoul Moat. Two days before that, I took a trip to the Galway Film Fleadh, where I watched ‘One Night In Turin’.
Directed by James Erskine and narrated by actor Gary Oldman, ‘One Night In Turin’ is a documentary about England’s part in the 1990 World Cup. Based on Pete Davies’ seminal book ‘All Played Out’, it consists entirely of 20-year-old archive footage.
At its centre are two men – Bobby Robson and Paul Gascoigne. Robson was the universally respected grand old man of English football by the time of his death, but went to Italia ’90 as the widely vilified manager of the national team. Gazza’s place on the plane to Italy was considered to be in doubt, but he came home a national hero.
The midfielder put in some great performances, and famously shed tears when he picked up a second yellow card in the semi-final against West Germany. What we didn’t know then was notwithstanding a couple of stunning goals in later years, the young Newcastle man had already reached his high water mark as a player. No talking heads appear in the documentary with their reflections 20 years on, but at least in the case of ‘Gazza’, it has, perhaps, all been said before.
In the meantime, he has been guilty of domestic violence, and undergone therapy for bulimia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and alcoholism. He told a BBC documentary in 2005 that retiring from football had ripped his heart out.
Hearing him being interviewed at the weekend, it was clear that the man who wore the number 19 shirt for England 20 years ago is not well. In some ways, it’s hard to believe that the shy young lad who pops up on the documentary playing tennis with tourists in the midday Italian sun is the same guy who showed up in Rothbury on Friday – the worse for wear, with a fishing rod, lager, chicken and a mobile phone.
The past, LP Hartley noted, is another country, and it’s not just the hairdos that are different. The so-called ‘English disease’ – hooliganism – was rampant, and some of the views expressed by the then British Minister for Sport seem almost incomprehensible at this remove.
Towards the end of ‘One Night In Turin’, there’s footage of another teary-eyed football genius, Diego Maradonna, who was captain of the Argentina team which lost the final. Maradonna – sent home in disgrace from the 1994 World Cup after failing a drugs test – has since been rehabilitated as manager of his country’s national team. But it’s impossible to see Gazza making a similar journey. ?
