Gazza - more problems

[lauren]

saw a report in the Telegraph that Gascoigne was taken to a London hospital after drunken behaviour at a Knightsbridge hotel.

[loz]

It has been on the BBC as well. Apparently no crime committed or anything like that and he went in voluntarily. You really have to start to wonder how long he is going to be with us don't you.

I live in hope that he will, one day, get sorted out but all the signs are that that will never happen.

[coco]

Gazza was born the same day as myself. He'll be 41 on May 27th.

There are players only 5-6 years younger than him still playing.

Very sad.

[coco]

Cant McCoist get him a job at The Gers ? It would give him some meaning, instead of drinking himself into oblivion.

[Valerie]

On a Dutch newssite, it says Gascoigne tried to drown himself in a hotel bath.

[Maksimov]

Just read about it on a Finnish newspaper's netsite. Apparently he'd gone to Hotel Millenium's restaurant clearly drunk and had ordered a steak, but then changed his mind and had told the staff that he wanted just a steak-knife.

The he'd gone to a hotel room where he was in a bath tub with his head barely above water and he was shouting something about him having ordered cocaine and that he wanted cocaine. According to the article he had threatened to drown himself if they didn't bring a knife so he can slit his wrists.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Either the story isn't completely true(=didn't happen just like the way the paper says it happened) or Gazza's really messed up!

[Gem]

I never really saw "Gazza" at his peak so I can't comment on his football. However, everything I've read/seen from then since doesn't install me with great confidence about his character. Like many others he may have lived for football, but they don't go off the rails in a major way like this.

He needs some serious mental help, but he needs to admit it first, is he big enough to do that?

[Maksimov]

He needs some serious mental help, but he needs to admit it first, is he big enough to do that?

Maybe this latest incident was just a big cry for help...

[Gem]

It's harsh for me to judge him on his antics (I didn't say recent, as he's been doing it for years) I know, as I'm not in his situation and have no idea what his mind set is, but the man needs help. There is only so much you can be forced to do, the rest you have to want. Isn't it about time? No, about time would have been years ago, he sorted his life out?

I've never particually liked what I saw of him, guess my specs are tinted to what I have seen of him and not the obvious gifted footballer that I never really paid attention to.

[BLUENUT]

I'm gutted for the bloke. He was a top player with the world at his feet, but after 'that' tackle on Charles in the cup final, his career went backwards for a long spell.

A typical joker and an absolute blinder of a fella, it's a real shame all those hangers on who loved being seen with 'Gazza' now can't distance themsleves far enough away.

This is a bloke who entered the world of celebrity, got chewed up, and spat out the other side.

Good luck Gazza.

National hero after Italia 90, and I still get a lump in the throat when I watch replys of him in that tournament.

Like many others he may have lived for football, but they don't go off the rails in a major way like this.

Sadly alot of this generation have, Paul McGrath, Gary Charles, Cannoville. Some didn't earn what players get now, to have thousands singing your name one week, then cannot get a job because you have no qualifications but still have to work must be painful - especially if you're 'high profile'.

You cannot judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

Gazza has had a lifetime of people 'pretending' to be there for him but just hang on to his coat-tails of fame. Have a look at Sheryll or whatever her name is, her daughter is now one of these 'non celeb's' due to the fact here mum dated Gazza, and f*cked off as soon as his career was nearing it's end. Thrown out of his home and all played out in the press as well.

It's a shame..... a real shame

[Barn]

The bloke is a nut job, in any other walk of life he would have just been considered an arsehole and a bully, but because he had so much ability everyone seems to think he's owed something by society. I've officially run out of sympathy.

[Bridgeboy]

poor gazza, he is nothing without football. Such a shame, Sky or someone need to tell him to get his act together and they will offer him a job. We cannot let one of our national heroes go down like this !

[Barn]

He's been offered enough possible routes back into the game, it's time the game moved on - he done very well out of it and currently doesn't want to get back to the real world (that's the impression I get anyway).

[bluegraham]

the lad needs help thats plan to see but the media are animals kick you when your down thats what there best at.

[Gem]

Like many others he may have lived for football, but they don't go off the rails in a major way like this.

You cannot judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

Which is why I put:

"It's harsh for me to judge him on his antics I know, as I'm not in his situation and have no idea what his mind set is"

But others have moved on, I'm afraid I'm with Barn on this one. Maybe in a few years when I see my favourite players beat up their wives or get put in jail for going off the rails I'll eat humble pie and understand how "Gazza" fans feel. I do feel sorry for him in the fact that the media have made a huge deal out his off the field antics when maybe other, lesser profile ex-players have been left out the limelight.

[clubhappy]

poor gazza, he is nothing without football. Such a shame, Sky or someone need to tell him to get his act together and they will offer him a job. We cannot let one of our national heroes go down like this !

I'd hardly call him a national hero .

[Jane]

I'm gutted for the bloke. He was a top player with the world at his feet, but after 'that' tackle on Charles in the cup final, his career went backwards for a long spell.

A typical joker and an absolute blinder of a fella, it's a real shame all those hangers on who loved being seen with 'Gazza' now can't distance themsleves far enough away.

This is a bloke who entered the world of celebrity, got chewed up, and spat out the other side.

Gazza has had a lifetime of people 'pretending' to be there for him but just hang on to his coat-tails of fame. Have a look at Sheryll or whatever her name is, her daughter is now one of these 'non celeb's' due to the fact here mum dated Gazza, and f*cked off as soon as his career was nearing it's end. Thrown out of his home and all played out in the press as well.

It's a shame..... a real shame

Bluenut, Gascoine was actually married to Sheryl and she left him because of his alcoholism and violence towards her. In his autobiography he admits to headbutting her, throwing her to the floor, blacking her eye and breaking her finger. Hardly a "blinder" of a fella if you ask me. The way you put it makes him out to be a victim but I personally think that anyone who repeatedly knocks his wife around deserves all he gets. When you say she played their relationship out in the press, I wonder if that was her or him. It would appear that all his cries for help happen in public places. He never takes himself off somewhere private to do himself harm does he? I'm glad he doesn't otherwise he wouldn't still be here, but there is a pattern of behaviour there.

Regarding Bianca Gascoine, everything I've ever read of her, it seems that she has great sympathy for her stepfather, which must be rather hard when she would have seen the results of her mother being knocked about by him.

If you're going to use the tabloid media as your reference point at least get your "facts" straight. You can't use them to bash people on one hand and then trash them when they don't write what you like, when it suits you.

Regarding Gascoine, yes, I'm sorry that he isn't able to get his life together, it's very sad. But he's had lots of people there for him, including his ex wife, who he's still in contact with, but the choice to get better is in his hands. Lots of people suffer in this world, many are not victims by their own making, but Gascoine like Best is.

[Enrico]

In his autobiography he admits to headbutting her, throwing her to the floor, blacking her eye and breaking her finger. Hardly a "blinder" of a fella if you ask me. The way you put it makes him out to be a victim but I personally think that anyone who repeatedly knocks his wife around deserves all he gets.

In complete agreement.

[Tommy Power]

i've also read his autobiography and again hitting his wife etc was wrong but i simply feel the bloke is mentally unstable and reading the book it seems he always has been.

in his child hood up to the present time he says he has been traumitised but death to people around, and alcohol it seems was his way of getting throught it but now he is no longer as rich and famous as he once was he seems to have no purpouse in life. someone who it seems has always not been mentally stable however always had football to get him through as his goal but now however it seems as thought he has nothing to go out and do something that is worth doing and for a geezer like himself if its not worth it he isnt going to do it

[SydneyChelsea]

Sounds like a case of bipolar disorder amplified by years of alcohol abuse.

[Lofty]

To be honest, I've got very little sympathy. Drug/alcohol addiction isn't an acceptable excuse for wife beating or any other similarly extreme behaviour. He's known he's had a problem for years, and nothing much will change until such time as he really wants to change it. Nobody can do it for him. He knows he's got a problem and if he's unwilling to do anything about it, which he's apparently not, then the ultimate responsibility for his own self-destruction lies with him and him alone. Maybe this sounds harsh but that's the way it is.

[Barn]

I'm with Lofty, it's a poor excuse for an arsehole to use. Why is it instead of making people take responsibility for their actions we just give them lables to use to excuse them?

[BLUENUT]

When I said 'blinder' I meant in person, (I've met him in passing) he is very likeable and a bubbly character. Of course I know he went over the top sometimes with his childish pranks and I don't condone knocking women about for one minute. I was at Wembley singing ''Cheryll's black and blue'' along with the rest of us, but I think she stood for it until his career ended. If life with Gazza was really that bad why not get out earlier?? Was it because she saw him for the troubled soul he was, because she truly loved him or because he was earning over £50k per week, and she lived in a millionaires mansion, BTW as far as I know she still lives in that mansion!!

I don't really know enough about his relationship with his step daughter, but she has also used his celebrity status to her advantage. (Same as Callum Best, what are these people famous for?) Today, for example, she is on the front page of the Daily Star saying that her stepfather is ill and that 'Gazza is dead'' accompanied with a photo of her with her tits hanging out!! That just about sums it up for me. Is she genuinely concerned or once again using the 'Gazza' label to get her face on the front of the paper?

He is on a concoction of prescription drugs and is a very ill person who has constant battles with depression, he needs people around him who actually care about his well being rather than the 'celebrities' who attach themselves to the 'Gazza' name-tag.

Whether it's all his fault or not I still think it's a shame to watch the demise of one of the best footballer's this country has produced in the last 20 years. George Best all over again.

[andy]

Gazza arrested and sectioned again at the weekend