"It matters a great deal who is going to win, but not at all who won"
Glorious
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My world, football and me, Paul Gascoigne, London Simon and Schuster, 2011. ISBN 978-0-85720-448-6
This is one of a series of books by Simon and Schuster in the style of photos on almost every page and text describing what the picture means to the player. I loved the Paul Scholes book and the Denis Law book but found Gazza very much third best.
The book is written in what I assume to be Geordie with Gazza referring to himself as “us” and the word “me” meaning “my”. Example: “The ball broke to us inside the six-yard box but I scuffed me shot”. I found this strange in a published book.
There were some interesting insights – the 1990 World Cup and the famous tears, his assessment of Bobby Robson and Terry Venables and the booking the ref incident in Scotland. On other occasions he confirms the sterotype of footballers – “In Beijing we had a day off and a load of the lads went on a trip to the Great Wall. I couldn’t be bothered, it was too far so I was happy to sit about, in the Jacuzzi mostly”.
There are occasional moments of wit: “Newcastle were looking for 2.2 million quid for me – a fortune back then. Nowadays it wouldn’t even pay for Andy Carroll’s shampoo bill”.
The most interesting aspect of the book is Gazza’s struggles to come to terms with his talent. For example, “What made it even worse was that when I had a blinding game I still piled the pressure on myself because I was desperate to play as well in the next match, or even better if I could. If I scored a hat trick I used to worry about how the hell I would score another one.
Interestingly he writes early in the book “I was given a talent, perhaps by God”.
I found the 40 or so uses of the F word unnecessary and adding nothing to the book.