Free Gazza: My Story by Paul Gascoigne Page A

Vinnie Jones. I’d been pleased with my performance when we’d met them at home, but Vinnie hadn’t played that day. The press built up the return match into a personal duel between Jones, the hard man who took no prisoners, and me, the young kid full of fancy tricks.
    I didn’t really know much about Vinnie but he’d probably heard or read a bit about me being a new young player to watch, perhaps even a ‘gem’ in the making. During our warm-up, a lot of the photographers were taking pictures of me and I was generally getting quite a bit of attention. I could see Vinnie glaring at me. As I watched him in his warm-up, he looked huge. I’m always nervous and hyped-up before a game, but this time I was physically sick. As we walked out on to the pitch, and immediately after the kick-off, he made a point of talking to me. ‘I’m Vinnie Jones. I’m a fucking gypsy. It’s just you and me today, fat boy, just you and me …’
    It’s quite normal for more experienced players to try to intimidate you, sometimes by threatening to kill or maim you, especially if you’re young and new or seen as a fancy-dan player. But one look at Vinnie and I believed his threat. I didn’t think he was acting, thoughwe know now what a good actor he has become. I was sure he meant it, and I was right.
    The first time I touched the ball, he kicked me up in the air. He never left me alone all afternoon, except when he went off once to take a throw-in. ‘I’m off to take a throw, but I’ll be fucking back,’ he snarled.
    As a free kick was being taken, Vinnie was standing in front of me, waiting. I suddenly felt his hand come around and grab me by the balls. I screamed in agony. I thought at the time that nobody had seen what had happened, since we were not involved in the free kick, but a photograph was taken that appeared everywhere afterwards, becoming one of football’s best-known images. Someone must have made a fortune out of that, and I must say it didn’t in the end do Vinnie or me any harm, either.
    The game finished 0–0 and after the final whistle a Newcastle fan presented me with a bunch of roses. I sent someone to the Wimbledon dressing room with a single red rose from the bunch for Vinnie. In reply, Vinnie sent me a toilet brush. It made me laugh, but I didn’t quite get the joke. No one had yet called me daft as a brush, at least not in public. I now know, from Vinnie’s own autobiography, that when my rose arrivedhe looked around the dressing room for something to send back to me, and the toilet brush happened to be the first thing he saw. Later on, Vinnie and I became good friends and I went fishing and shooting at his place.
    Wimbledon had the last laugh on us that season. They beat us 3–1 in the fifth round of the Cup, having already knocked us out of the Littlewoods (League) Cup. They went on to beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final.
    By this time I’d come to believe that the Newcastle board did not know as much about football as they did about the politics of being a director. We’d had no decent new signings and some of the board members didn’t seem interested in putting much of their own money into the club. Stan Seymour, the chairman, liked to call himself Mr Newcastle – though I’m sure no one else would have called him that. Gordon McKeag, who took over as chairman from Stan, spoke as if he had a plum in his mouth and seemed to me stuck up. He rose to become League chairman, but I still didn’t reckon he knew much about football, just the politics.
    I was beginning to feel that I didn’t want to stay at Newcastle any longer, though I didn’t know where I would go. Perhaps I should have waited another year forKenny and Liverpool to make a bid. The uncertainty kept me awake at night, with everything going round and round my head, worrying about what was going to happen. I made endless lists. The frustration affected my game. When I played for the Under-21s against Scotland I got taken off because I