England football legend Paul Gascoigne is enjoying being on the road back doing what he love – telling jokes, entertaining the public and putting smiles on faces, as well as his own
Paul Gascoigne is enjoying life on the road again, more as a storyteller than a footballer.
He joked that his UK tour with Audiences was like touring with Taylor Swift. He continues to perform crowd-pleasing shows around the UK and Scandinavia. He will perform in Jersey again this summer and has a tour planned for Thailand.
He also wants to visit Saudi Arabia to follow his friend Tyson Fury’s attempt to regain the world heavyweight title. He has a new single-person four-bedroom house in the picturesque Dorset seaside town of Poole, 350 miles from his hometown of Tyneside. He struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. He has a 15cm scar just above his belly button from emergency surgery after succumbing to a stomach ulcer caused by drinking gin straight at one point.
He has a tattoo dedicated to his ex-wife Cheryl, 60, and their stepsons Bianca, 37, and Mason, 35, dancer son Regan, 28, both reality TV stars. He said the thrill of performing has been replaced by performing live for fans.
“I joke with them and say, ‘I played football when I was playing too,'” he said. “It’s good to see the fans again. I took 460 selfies at the Sheffield show.
They remember the goal I scored against Scotland more than the tears against Italy in 1990. There were lots of people who weren’t there when they were born, Terry Venables wanted to. He made me captain at Euro 1996 but he said he didn’t want to put any more pressure on me because I was already under so much pressure.
I didn’t sleep a wink before the Scotland game. But the atmosphere in the dressing room was fantastic.
“When we won against Holland, 90,000 people sang ‘Paul Gascoigne is the One’ and I had tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.”
No Limit had known him for a while, his fame soaring after the 1990 World Cup. He met Pope John Paul II, Princess Diana, Elton John, Robbie Williams, George Clooney and Dustin Hoffman. He recalled his time at Rangers when he was almost thrown out of the team for a very unusual reason: a hair transplant.
“I had extensions on the top,” Gazza recalled. “But I had the plaid in there, and Archie Knox said to me, ‘You can’t go out like that. Get out or we’ll kick you out,’ so I had to pull everybody out. They had fabric sewn in, not syrup. It took me so long to figure it all out.”
He will talk to the audience about his career and heyday at England between 1988 and 1998, when he was sacked by then manager Glenn Hoddle.
“There was a great atmosphere in the team hotel at Euro 96. Gareth Southgate, David Batty and Stuart Pearce played cards and I played snooker with Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler.
“Southgate was calm, a great defender, trained well and was very well organised. I always joke that he went into rehab after taking a penalty in the semi-final. He missed out but got a £30,000 pizza advert and the England manager’s job.
“In big tournaments with world-class players like the French, Germans and Italians, you can’t hold back,” he said. “England need to accelerate more, take more risks. We need to be less conservative and more accelerated.
“Terry Venables has given me permission to express myself and I think Gareth will do the same against Bellingham. I say let somebody do it and then the crowd will rally and everyone will get behind you. When you have 40,000 people cheering you on, you hear the voice.