“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

Writing in the Times, Simon Barnes describes Paul Gascoigne’s last few weeks as an increasingly unhinged guest at a Gateshead hotel, including the line “Gascoigne, 40, had apparently also spent hours in his room playing on a Nintendo Wii handheld computer game console.”

One reader’s reaction to this harrowing account? “The only one comment I have to say on this is that the Wii isn’t really a handheld device as such.”