I think 50 mins after a straight call out is enough time to declare both: A. bullshiter and B. ****ebag I just read a (reasonable) Rangers bloggers piece on Gazza - needless to say I disagree with almost all of it but the guy's reasonable enough and it explains why he loved him as a player. http://www.thefootyblog.net/ Personally, he's amongst my least favourite footballers ever - and that would've been the case before he signed for Rangers. It's a relief to find out that he was actually ill throughout his playing time - all that time I just thought he was a big walking parody and an embarrassment to the working classes. There are people that are more responsible than even Gazza himself for encouraging a fragile young man to behave the way he did just as there were loads of people in Naples, in particular, who were responsible for Maradonna's troubles. Still, they were gangsters and none of them are currently board members of a football club or managers of a football club where I hope they've learned their lesson
I thought I expressed my last post in the most emotively neutral language available and even provided a positive link about him. It's not as if I'm making stuff up like some wallopers.
Well, for a start, there was no mention of his troubled time at Spurs where he nearly ended his own and Gary Charles' careers at Wembley (voted third worst tackle in history, recently). I used to live in the same village as McCoist during the nineties. I know who he, Gazza and Five Bellies were running about with - don't expect that to come up but they were some ****ed up people. No mention of him defecating in other team's dressing rooms amongst his "pranks" and no mention of him almost getting Charlie Miller arrested by trying to wind up tims on the team bus. ZERO mention of his manager indulging his alcoholism at Rangers (or the senior players while we're at it) and it makes out that he only hit Shezza once in a hotel - her autobiography and book suggest that it was a sustained period of not only physical but repeated mental abuse. It mentions his son but not his two step-children who also complained of sustained mental abuse. Anyone reading it would be forgiven for thinking that Gazza was just a bit of a playboy or slightly errant but it was obvious to all that he was a timebomb. It mentions "razor-sharp elbows" once but I don't ever remember him going on a run without raising his elbows (I won't kid on I'm not biased). It also omits (and indulges the fantasy that refs somehow "persecuted" him in Scotland) the various brouhahas that came up at the time when he was yellow carded for blatantly straight red card offences (some of them elbows, some of them, petulant double footed stamps). You might remember him differently, but I remember a sort of immature man-child petulantly stomping about the park with a superstar sense of self-entitlement. He was a great player but he was a nasty, nasty arsehole with it
He was a great player, though, and there's an argument that people dislike the opposition's great players more than their average ones - fair enough. I can totally understand that he was your favourite player. I always thought Laudrup was both a better player and carried himself better than Gascoigne. I'm sure no-one has forgotten that he was actually a controversial player during his time here - he wasn't some tortured genius that ref's picked on for his "sense of humour". He had no qualms about hurting other players at all.
But you said you disagreed with almost all of it. Forgive me but it sounds more like you're not happy with the level of detail rather than disagreeing with what he actually wrote. It was just a short piece about his memories of the footballer he grew up watching as opposed to the modern tabloid character we're used to seeing. Did you read his wife's book? I think they've already been shown up for the parasitic, fame seeking money grabbers that they are. He was so abusive to his step children yet her daughter used his surname long after sheryl had dropped it? There's no excusing what he's done but I would take what they say with a pinch of salt, as for the rest of your hearsay, well...
Just, wow. I didn't read the book but parts of it were serialised in the press. The "Surviving Gazza" programme was some seriously harrowing ****. In the piece, there are four paragraphs about him being booked for the card incident, celebrating goals and the pranks he pulled but **** all about the player I remember. You know all the things you probably disliked about Neil Lennon's style of play and snarling at refs and the likes? If you can't remember Gascoigne berating refs, recklessly injuring other players, acting in a wholly irresponsible manner and all of this somehow being potrayed as a positive Jack-the-Lad character at the time, then you don't remember him. It's not a "lack of depth". It's a fanboy's review of him and, IMO, completely misrepresents the type of player he was.
Well again it sounds more like you're unhappy at the size of the piece rather than the accuracy. About these four paragraphs, do you disagree that they happened in the way he described? I'm sure they all happened. Are you really trying to compare him to Lennon? I don't think they have similar history, except women trouble.
I don't know how ****ed up gazza is, nor do I give a **** but he was a great footballer, one of the top 10 players to play in the SPL during my time.
