Let me get the usual fawning out of the way early before I continue this piece: in his time at Spurs Paul Gascoigne grew from a podgy potentially good midfielder into one of the world’s finest midfield players of his generation.

That’s where the fawning ends. Since his infamous career threatening injury in the 1991 FA Cup Final Paul Gascoigne has been nothing but trouble to himself, those who know him and those who have previously cared for him.

Last night he was arrested for an alleged incident of committing actual bodily harm on a 43 year old photographer while out on the town in London (how many times do we have to hear this story?) and as of this morning was being held in custody by police in West london.

Add this latest incident to the long list and you’ll find that as time goes on Paul Gascoigne becomes an even more pathetic specimen of a man who, though obviously troubled with mental problems and a life threatening fondness for alcohol, has absolutely no chance of helping himself quell the demons that will ultimately ruin him.

Wife beating and spousal abuse, drunken brawls, fights with photographers and nightclub patrons and a football career ruined by self inflicted injury and a “devil may care” attitude to life are not things we can easily forgive and it’s with great sadness, as a young Spurs fan who enjoyed Gazza in his heyday, that I say to him now: Paul, get out of the spotlight, surround yourself with people who are trained to help people with your obvious problems and try and move on with your life after football. You had your chance and you blew it, make the most of what time you’ve got left and try and make amends for your failings in the past.

For your sake as much as anyone’s.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 8th, 2006 at 12:50 pm and is filed under Football Legal News. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.