Once hailed as English football’s enfant terrible, Paul Gascoigne was known for his explosive temper, emotional nature, and extraordinary talent on the field. A gifted midfielder and a loveable prankster, “Gazza” became one of England’s most iconic players of the 1990s. But when his football career ended, the decline that had long shadowed him took full control, leaving behind a man visibly marked by addiction and trauma, reports Baltimore Chronicle citing Web.de.
There’s one image of Gascoigne that still defines him — the 1990 World Cup semi-final against Germany. After fouling Thomas Berthold, Gascoigne was shown a yellow card, his second of the tournament, which meant automatic suspension from a potential final. As he realized his World Cup dream was over, tears welled up in his eyes — a moment of raw emotion that made him a national hero. England lost the match, Germany won the title, and “Gazza’s” tears became part of football history.
In the decades since, Gascoigne’s story has darkened. Years of alcohol and drug abuse, repeated breakdowns, drink-driving incidents, and rehab stints have taken their toll. Once a powerful athlete, he is now frail and bearded, almost unrecognizable. In a candid Good Morning Britain interview, he admitted that sobriety remains a struggle: “I can stay dry for months, and then I’ll slip for two days and hate myself for it afterwards.”
Gascoigne appeared on the show to promote his upcoming memoir Eight, named after his famous jersey number. He said the book isn’t about football but about his battles with addiction and mental illness — a story meant to help others. The book is due for release on October 25, with excerpts already published by Daily Mail.
For years, Gascoigne has been open about his mental health challenges. Alongside addiction, he suffers from OCD and severe anxiety. In Eight, he writes that alcohol is the only thing that silences his obsessive thoughts: “Once I’m sober, the compulsions come back — that voice in my head telling me something terrible will happen.”
Gascoigne traces his lifelong trauma back to a childhood tragedy. At the age of ten, he witnessed the death of a teammate’s younger brother, who was hit by a car just meters away. “His body flew through the air,” Gascoigne recalls. “All I could do was hold him until the ambulance came.” He developed tics soon after but never received the therapy he needed. Football, he says, became his escape: “When I played, those 90 minutes were mine — I was free.”
Despite his troubles, Gascoigne rose to stardom in English football. At Newcastle United, his youth coach famously called him a “fat bastard” and gave him two weeks to lose weight — leading to an early struggle with bulimia. While he overcame that disorder, alcohol would prove far harder to defeat. “I’ve tried everything to stay sober,” he writes, “and nothing worked.”
Even at the height of his career, Gascoigne often drank — sometimes even at halftime. Yet his brilliance on the pitch made him England’s “Golden Boy.” He was known as much for his wild stories as for his skills — missing a meeting with the Pope because training ran long, or learning his son’s name from a newspaper because he’d been drinking in a pub during the birth.
Today, those anecdotes carry a different weight. The humor has faded, replaced by the painful truth of a man who has lost nearly everything to addiction. Paul Gascoigne remains a haunting reminder of the fine line between genius and self-destruction — and of the price fame can exact.
Earlier we wrote that Arturo Gatti Jr., son of boxing legend, dies at 17: full details of tragic loss.
