Football Poets

Gazza

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Gazza
This is the cautionary tale
Of the man
Who fell into the deepest well
Amid the sleazy debauchery
Of drugs, sex and rock and roll
Blurred visions of kebabs, lager
Growing larger
That took its severest toll
On the Paul Gascoigne of old
And new but we knew that
This medieval court jester
Would always fester in dark
Doorways of riotous hedonism
Nightclub tenancies where
Gazza wined and dined
Drunk to the point of
Ludicrous forgetfulness
The morning after the thirstiness
Could never be quenched
This young genius could never be benched
So the Geordie poster boy
From Newcastle’s finest
But never coy
Oh the impudence and insubordination
That Gazza gave us in spades
Upon the blades of green
Accurate and clean
Heavenly, angelic and ethereal skills
Gazza, passing of more refinement and
Yet more thrills
But then there was the World Cup
Of Italia 90 when Bobby Robson
Trusted his warrior but then crumpled
Rumpled with despair, when Gazza
Was booked and hooked and Lineker
Winked and pointed the finger
As Gazza threatened to pull the trigger
Only for Waddle and Pearce to miss
Penalties that landed in Naples
A staple diet of agonising near misses
Hisses of English disapproval on Italian
Soil where the blood did boil
And then when Graham Taylor
Claimed not to like something
And questioned linesman on
Future employment prospects
Gazza in the midst of private turmoil
Grinning, gurning, gesticulating
Painting the town red, performing,
Face contorting, burping and belching
To those who exposed his fault lines
When the wines once flowed
How dreadful it must have been
Living life to the full, but now open
To ridicule, World Cup 1994
Now lost forever in the hellish realms
Of the nightmare goal-less draw
Gazza had rebellion and non conformity
Where none could find him in any dormitory
In that hard wired mindset
You bet. The party animal
Could never be tamed
And yet we never blamed
The excessive self indulgence
In the beaming light of astonishing
Refulgence
Finally there was the Glen Hoddle
Fiasco of 1998 when Gazza
Sadly pressed the self destruct button
Bloated and beaten, bloodied and bandaged
Paul Gascoigne, soul now destroyed
But spirit unscathed
Hoddle torn between the Gazza
Who might have been, a shadow
Of his former self. Now there’s a tiresome cliche
Then Venners, Terry Venables and Euro 96
Oh what bitterness and more tears and weary
Years. If only the lunging leg had connected
And affected our thoughts on Football Coming Home
The Germans may have been weeping into their fulsome
Steins of Munich beerfests
Now Gazza though could only ponder
On days of lilywhite shirts of Spurs,
Teeside Boro and richly Scottish shortbread
Helpings of Glasgow Rangers
For now he has been cast into the land
Of isolation where once there
Was phenomenal popularity
Among the heaving masses
Gazza you were the best
Among those in football who
Believed in the rest
Of his special talent

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