“Tragic ace” has more vivid inner life than the rest of England’s footballers put together

As part of their Gazza coverage, the Times have run an extract from Hunter Davies’ outstanding book, Gazza My Story, written with Paul Gascoigne in 2004, which you can read by clicking here. Amongst the many insights into a lifetime of mental turbulence are these two:

“I should have had counselling. Years ago, when I was a boy in Gateshead, I had my first chance to get help, but I didn’t go back.

“When I was seven, I had a weird experience. I’d been playing football in the park all afternoon and all evening. I had my new football and I kept on playing, even though it had got dark and all the other kids had gone home. As I was walking home on my own, I looked up at the stars and thought, how long do stars go on for? Then I wondered, how long will I live? Will it be okay when I’m dead or will I feel different? Suddenly I was scared, and I ran all the way home, screaming and crying.

“I got into bed with me mam and dad, squeezed in beside them. I didn’t tell them why I’d been screaming. I just sort of hid it in my head. It didn’t come out again till recently, in a conversation with a counsellor at a clinic. It was a massive relief to talk about that.”

On living in a hotel in 2004

“I don’t feel lonely. It’s just nice and quiet. You don’t have arguments when you’re on your own. I like hotels the way I like hospitals. After all, I’ve spent years of my life in hotels and in hospitals. (I’ve had 27 operations for football injuries.) It’s the sense of being looked after, and the comfort.

“I especially like it in hospitals when they give you morphine. I could do with more of that, just to zonk me out, stop me thinking.”