Gazza: My Story (29 page)

My own divorce came through later, in August 1998. I was heartbroken, even though I knew it was coming. I hadn’t got married to get divorced. I’d thought it would last, despite everything; despite the horrible things I’d done. I sold the house in Renfrewshire and made a big settlement on Shel. I also agreed to generous regular maintenance payments, for her and all three kids. As I’ve said, I had always looked on Bianca and Mason as my own, and my responsibility, so I didn’t moan or fight it.

At the end of the year, I then did something really daft. As a Christmas present, I gave Shel my timeshare lodge, the one on Loch Lomond. From then on I had no home or place to live of my own. I was staying either in rented houses or flats or in hotels.

But at least I was settled at my new club. That summer of 1998, Boro had got the promotion we were so desperate to achieve and, best of all, I had the World Cup of 1998 in France to look forward to.

I was sick when Terry Venables parted company with England after Euro 96. Not just because he was my friend, and I admired him so much as a manager – the best in football, in my view – but because the whole thing was so unfair. All because he had business problems. What the hell did that have to do with his football work? He never mentioned any of his business ventures to us, never let us down at any time, for any event, and he wasn’t neglecting his England duties. We knew nothing about his life outside the England camp. These days, players have many business interests, which can take up a lot of their time, but they don’t get into trouble with England or their clubs if these go wrong,
which some of them are bound to do. I don’t see that it matters. All that matters is what happens on the pitch, and whether they are doing their job properly.

I was a bit worried when I heard that Glenn Hoddle had got the job. He was a legend, of course, but I’d never played alongside him – he’d recently left Spurs when I arrived – although I’d played against him when I was a youngster starting out at Newcastle. When he took over the England job in 1996, Walter Smith said to me, ‘Be careful – Hoddle will want to make a name for himself.’ I didn’t know at the time what he meant by that. It would be two years before I understood.

I had no real complaints about Hoddle as he picked me regularly, as long as I was fit and well and playing OK. But there were irritating elements to his management. In England training sessions, I didn’t like the way he told us how to do stretches. As professionals, we had all done stretching exercises for years and had long since worked out what suited our individual bodies best. Hoddle always thought he knew much better than anyone else. But of course, you do what he says – he’s the manager. And his sidekick, John Gorman, I suspect, reported back any little bit of gossip to his boss.

When Hoddle heard stories about me drinking at
Rangers, and going out on the town in London with Chris Evans, he got it into his head that I needed some special treatment to sort myself out. He said to me one day, ‘Would you like to go and see Eileen Drewery?’ I thought he’d said, ‘Would you like to go and see a brewery?’ so naturally, I said yeah, good idea, boss, count me in.

Anyway, I went to see Eileen Drewery, who the press called his faith-healer. He thought she was marvellous. An England car was arranged to drive me to her home. She put her hand on my head, gave it a lot of soft chat, and then announced that I had bad spirits in my head. She said demons were coming out of my head and into her house. I couldn’t see them – and you’d have thought I would have noticed them. She opened the window, to let my demons out, which was thoughtful of her.

I was there for about forty-five minutes, with Eileen feeling my head and mumbling away. When she had finished, she told me that that night, I mustn’t have a cigarette, or a glass of beer, as it would let all my bad spirits in again.

When I was walking downstairs on my way out, I noticed her sitting in another room – having a fag. Just
what she had told me not to do. Later on, at an England do, I spotted her in the players’ lounge with a bottle of beer. Things she’d told me not to do, she was doing herself. Fucking cheek! I’d played in a World Cup, a European Championship and in Italy, and I’d won two Doubles with Rangers, and here she was, telling me how to behave and how to live my life.

Darren Anderton came back from Eileen’s and said she had healed his ankle, or whatever it was that was wrong with him, I forget. Others, too, claimed she had really helped them. Don’t get me wrong, I never rubbished her. I said nothing against her to the press or in public then, and I’m not going to start now. But I could not say she had helped me, either, when I honestly didn’t think she had. All I’m saying is that her methods were not for me. I don’t believe in all that spiritualism stuff. I’m not dismissing it as nonsense. I just don’t go along with it myself.

Glenn sent me three times to see Eileen. What could I do? You can’t refuse the England manager, can you? But personally, I thought all the visits were a waste of time.

In May 1997, in an England game against South Africa at Old Trafford, I had a bit of an argument with
a linesman whose decisions I wasn’t happy with. While I was reasoning with him, I noticed he was chewing that nicotine gum, which I’d heard about and wanted to try. It’s supposed to make you relax.

At half-time, Hoddle said he wanted a word with me in a few minutes, and could I step into the other room? I knew which room he meant, but I deliberately went into the wrong room. When the manager didn’t appear, I went off to try to find the linesman and ask him where he got his special tobacco gum. I got a bollocking from Hoddle for disappearing, for not going into the room he had told me to meet him in. I shouted at him, ‘Stop treating me like a fucking schoolkid!’ Which, of course, I should not have done.

There was somebody else Hoddle lined up to help us before the 98 World Cup. One day this French bloke arrived, a dietician I suppose, who talked to us all and told us there was something very important we should do – we had to chew our food properly. He said if we did so, we would win. The phrase he kept on repeating was ‘chew to win’. So we went round saying it as well, shouting out to each other, ‘Chew to win!’ Taking the piss of course. I asked him one day, why, as he was French, he wasn’t helping the French team, getting them
to chew to win. He said the French team wasn’t good enough. Showed how much he knew.

In June 1997, we went to France for Le Tournoi, a four-nation friendly tournament involving the hosts, England, Italy and Brazil, which gave us the chance to test ourselves against our rival challengers for the World Cup the following year. We beat Italy and France but lost 1–0 to Brazil. I played in all three of our games. In the second, against France in Montpellier – which we won 1–0 with a goal from Alan Shearer – I received my fiftieth England cap.

That autumn we played our two remaining World Cup qualifiers. I scored one of the goals in our 4–0 defeat of Moldova at Wembley in September. Then came the crunch match, the return fixture against Italy in Rome on 11 October. To make sure of qualification we needed at least a draw.

It was one of the most tense games I ever played for England. There were over 80,000 people in the Olympic Stadium, where I had appeared many times with Lazio. It held memories, too, of the 1990 World Cup. I so wanted to do well in front of the Italian crowds, to let them see what I was still capable of. From the beginning Italy had been the favourites to win the
group, which, as well as England and Moldova, included Poland and Georgia, so they were pretty confident, especially at home. And they had already beaten us at Wembley, 1–0 in February, a match I hadn’t played in.

On the night, we managed to play the Italians at their own game, being solid and defensive when we had to, giving nothing away. I knew I had to be mature and sensible and hold the midfield. This was my fifty-third cap, which made me the most-capped player in the team, ahead of Tony Adams who was on 48, Dave Seaman with 38 and Paul Ince with 34. I felt that, at the age of thirty, I had to use my experience to help the younger lads who had not been all that long in the side, such as David Beckham. When I’d first played for England almost ten years earlier, older players like Bryan Robson and Terry Butcher had been very good with me. Now it was my turn to do the same.

We got a 0–0 draw, which on paper seems nothing, pretty boring, but we played excellently. It was probably one of the most satisfying internationals of my career. The Italians are very good at diving and wasting time when they want to, so I did a bit of that, too, kicking the ball away and making them chase for it. It was great to see them running after it for a change. Afterwards, I
felt I could walk round Italy for ever afterwards with my chest stuck out.

The papers next day were very complimentary. ‘Gascoigne produced one of the most controlled performances of his career,’ said
The Times
, ‘and played with a sustained quality and maturity, illuminated by flashes of technical brilliance.’ Doesn’t quite sound like me, does it?

The draw put us at the top of our group, one point ahead of Italy, and we were through to the 1998 World Cup finals while Italy had to go to the play-offs. Ha, ha. If Hoddle doesn’t pick me for his World Cup squad, I’ll kill him, I thought afterwards. But at the same time, I knew I’d done my job well so far, and was content to see what the next year would bring.

At the end of the season, while waiting to depart with the World Cup squad for our warm-up camp, La Manga in Spain, I got a call from Chris Evans asking me to appear on his TV programme. I did the show and we went out for a few drinks afterwards. At 11.30 we stopped and had a chicken kebab. I was back in Chris’s house by midnight. But in that half-hour someone had taken a photo of us, and once again I was all over the papers. I know for a fact that six England players
were out in Soho that night till four in the morning, but none of them appeared in the press, just me. It seemed the media were determined to crucify me.

It wasn’t even as if it was the eve of a big game. There were still a few days to go before we left for Spain. But Glenn Hoddle was furious. He said he was worried about my condition. Was I in a fit state to play for England any more? Following the Italy game, he had shaken my hand and told me I’d done brilliantly and was vital to his future plans. And now this. It was very depressing. After the kebab incident was blown up out of all proportion, I was seen out one evening with Rod Stewart and Chris Evans. Again Hoddle was quoted as saying he was worried about my behaviour but he didn’t know the truth about either incident.