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Press coverage of 39 Days of Gazza 'This fine and well-researched book' - Daily
Telegraph review Much of the credit for the hard-fought draw against Leeds
was attributed to their manager-goalkeeper, Lee Harper, who flung himself about to great effect despite a nasty back injury.
In
39 Days Of Gazza (Pennant Books, £9.99), Steve Pitts recounts the latest episode of a football career that seems, unfortunately,
to be veering increasingly from the gifted, to the comic, to the tragic. After more than three
dozen operations and some increasingly desperate foreign adventures, England’s former midfield genius accepted that
his playing days were over in autumn 2005, and snapped up the offer from Imraan Ladak, Kettering’s ambitious young chairman,
to take charge of a club that had known nothing but non-League football throughout its 133-year existence. It might have been a new start for Gascoigne, but as the club’s former chairman, Peter Mallinger, pointed out:
“Other than a pub, a football club must be the worst place in the world for an alcoholic who cannot resist the temptation
— the place is full of drink.” And so, soon, was Gascoigne, who fell not only off
the wagon but also off the team bus, alerting his players to the root cause behind their manager’s increasingly erratic
behaviour. The author is a senior sports journalist from Northamptonshire, who was perfectly
placed to observe the increasingly bizarre events as they unfolded. Pitts writes straightforwardly and well, and rightly withholds
judgment on his subject. Anyone who enjoyed seeing Gascoigne in his prime as a player will hope
that the latest of the yellow cards that life has recently shown him will help him towards a lasting resolution of his problems.
Local
sports journalist Steve Pitts was able to capture the whirlwind that blew into the small but ambitious non-league side-39
Days of Gazza is his account of a remarkable few weeks and the trail of acrimony it left behind.
Brought in by Kettering's owner Imraan Ladak, Gazza's arrival overwhelmed the Northamptonshire club. With global news
channels camped outside the club's Rockingham Road stadium, Pitts wonders whether any non-league side had ever garnered
more publicity. But inevitably the cracks soon appear. Gazza's assistant ex-Arsenal
star Paul Davis, delivers their first team-talk by showing a video of Lizarazu, Desailly and Thuram at France 98; star-struck
Ladak appears to know little about running a football club; and Gazza's team selections are as bizarre as his behaviour.
There is a growing sense of doom until the point where Gazza is sacked. From then onwards, 39 Days is best read through closed
fingers. Spiralling out of control, Gazza conducts an emotional interview where he claims to be the club's owner and threatens
to turn up at the next game. The whole transcript plus Ladak's response are included, providing a background to the whole
excruciating pantomime being played out on Sky Sorts News. The days may only
cover 39 days, but the hope and despair is Gazza's career in a nutshell. The material is occasionally stretched thinly
over 230-odd pages, but this is a compelling drama made more surreal by the small stage upon which it was played.
In the end, the most damning verdict is delivered by a young player who, when asked what lessons he'd learnt from Gazza ,
replied "Not to drink." From Gazza's tears to a crying shame... a sad indictment indeed. Leeds, who visit Rockingham Road in the second
round of the FA Cup today, had the 44 days of Brian Clough. Kettering had the 39 days of Gazza, intimately portrayed in a
book of the same name by Steve Pitts, who was sports editor of the Kettering Evening Telegraph on the day in October 2005
when Gascoigne, having just injured himself in rehearsals for Strictly Ice Dancing, arrived for his first job in football
management. His brief, laid out by the new chairman, Imraan Ladak, was to put
bums on seats and transform Kettering into a League One side. The first was fleetingly achieved; the second was a non-starter,
although major strides have been made since the spotlight was turned off. As
ever, Gazza was likeable. He bought pizza for the players after training – "because that's what they do in
Serie A"; he turned on the town's Christmas lights; he signed every scrap of paper put in front of him; he insisted
on a jacket and tie in the boardroom. One middle-class caller phoned the club to ask if Gascoigne would like to join his dinner
party. However, he appears to have barely understood the level of football he had descended to. "It wasn't even the Conference, it was the Conference North," said Pitts. "It is a world of long
balls, hard work and crap pitches. And Gazza shows the team a video of France winning the 1998 World Cup and tells them this
is how they are going to play. He hadn't got a clue about football at this level. "Kettering had a close-knit dressing room that enjoyed the prospect of Gascoigne becoming their manager more
than they enjoyed being managed by him. They were a team of factory workers and warehousemen, whose jobs were more important
than their football. When he said he wanted them to go full-time it scared them – let alone the fantasy talk of Les
Ferdinand or Steve McManaman coming. They wondered where they fitted in to all this." Even the publicity was problematic. By then, Gascoigne loathed the press to the extent of devoting one of his first
team talks to advising his players how to cope if they were followed into a nightclub or pictured with a woman, although as
the player Christian Moore pointed out: "I am married, but if I were out with a girl, do you really think it would be
front-page material?" Not even in the Kettering Evening Telegraph. "The
trouble was, Gascoigne craved publicity," said Pitts. "There were 70 journalists for his first press conference
and a dozen for the next. Then I [was] the only reporter and he kept me waiting two-and-a-half hours. They resorted to bussing
in students from a journalism college. The lack of interest hurt. He quickly became just another manager in the Conference
North, then a manager in the Conference North who was not doing well and finally a manager in the Conference North who was
falling apart." The problem was not so much results, which were average
(Kettering won three of eight games under Gascoigne), but the booze. Kettering's former chairman, Peter Mallinger, said:
"Apart from a pub, a football club is the worst place for an alcoholic – it is full of drink." Mallinger's first encounter with Gascoigne saw him swig from a bottle of Harvey's
Bristol Cream that had been gathering dust in the manager's drinks cabinet since the Christmas raffle. Kettering trained
only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and there was an ocean of time to fill. White wine replaced sherry, brandy replaced wine and,
with the death of his fellow alcoholic, icon and friend George Best, Gascoigne collapsed completely. Paul
Gascoigne’s struggle with alcohol addiction and mental health problems is well known thanks to several books and a recent
TV documentary. September 20, 2009 At
one game, he’d knocked back so much wine on the coach he fell out of the door. And twice he walked into the showers fully clothed to shake hands with his team’s rivals. Now his former players and coaching staff have contributed to a tell-all book about his only attempt at managing
a football team. The troubled former England star spent just 39 days as their
boss in 2005 before being sacked for drunken behaviour. In 39 Days Of
Gazza, author Steve Pitts reveals most players became aware of the extent of his booze problem on the way to a rainy game
at Alfreton Town, just ten days into his stint as manager. On the coach
journey Gazza was swigging from a bottle of wine hidden down the side of his seat. “He literally fell off the bus,” says defender Brett Solkhon. “Then he stormed on to the pitch
and accused the home team of waterlogging it on purpose, saying they’d got the hoses out.” Former chairman Peter Mallinger says: “Paul’s preparation for
every game was straight on the wine followed by a request for the brandy.” In one match – against Hednesford Town – Gazza was so hammered he didn’t realise his team had scored.
Striker Christian Moore said: “After going 2-0 down, we chased
the game and pulled it back to 2-1. He didn’t realise we had scored. When we equalised he thought the score was
2-1 to them.” Solkhon says it was the pressure of match days that
caused Gazza to hit the bottle. “He was never drunk or drinking at training,
it was only on match days. He was just over-excited – the pressure got to him,” he says. “There were a few times when he was reduced to tears before the game. He’d say things to us like, ‘You’re
my boys, we’re Kettering Town’.” Two managers remember a
suited Gazza walking fully clothed into the away dressing room showers to shake hands with startled opposition players. Stalybridge Celtic manager John Reed was laying into his players for losing 4-1 to Kettering
when the star strolled into his dressing room. “He’s carrying a
pint glass that’s over half-full of whisky and he walks up and gives it to me,” he says. Gazza walked around offering his players autographs before marching out. Reed then ordered his players into
the shower. “Then he came back in and walked around shaking hands again.
Half the lads were in the shower but he just walked in and talked to them.” And
Droylsden manager Dave Pace says: “He just got in the shower with the lads, shaking their hands and wishing them well.
“They had no clothes on and he has his suit, which got soaked. It was
strange.” 39 Days Of Gazza is published by Pennant Books (£9.99)
on September 28 and can be preordered online. A FLY-ON-THE-WALL account of life with Paul
Gascoigne features in a new book. And it reveals how the ex-Newcastle and England star's troubled
time in charge of non league Kettering Town was brought to a juddering halt by the illness and booze induced death of his
idol George Best. Already struggling to come to terms with managing the Conference North side
with tales of his drinking becoming commonplace, the former Newcastle United and England star appeared to “lose it”
when a picture of Best on his death bed under the headline “Don’t die like me” appeared in a national newspaper. Local sports editor Steve Pitts said: “Gazza seemed to think the headline was aimed at him. He just couldn’t
cope with it – he’s a very emotional guy. “It seemed to destroy him. It was
terrible to see. He had been drinking before then but then it became more open.” Soon after
he was sacked, bringing an end to an episode which, even in the midfielder’s colourful life, can best be described as
bizarre and is captured in Steve’s book, ‘39 days of Gazza’. Steve, working
for a local paper when the appointment was made in October 2005, revealed with an air of inevitability that the first time
people got wind of Gazza taking over as manager was when he was spotted drinking in a local pub with pal Jimmy ‘Five
Bellies’ Gardner. He was installed as manager by ambitious owner Imraan Ladak and for a
brief period the quiet Northamptonshire town got a taste of Gazza mania. Steve, 51, said: “I’ve
been a journalist since the age of 19. I’d never seen anything like it before and I’ll probably never the like
again.” At Gazza’s first Press conference there were 70 journalists and in his first
game in charge saw 4,500 fans crammed into the club’s ramshackle Rockingham Road ground compared to just 900 in the
previous home game. “Nobody could believe what was happening. They thought it was fantastic,
there was such a buzz. At the time everyone was carried along on a tidal wave of euphoria,” said Steve. Initial results were good. A game against Stalybridge Celtic saw ‘The Poppies’ run out 4-1 winners and
the opposing manager saying it was the best display he’d seen given by a team at that level. “In
true Gazza style he presented the manager with a half pint of whisky to drink, a warm embrace in front of his amused players
before signing a match ball which was later auctioned for £200 by Stalybridge to raise cash for charity. Steve said: “That was Gazza the good guy. He was great with the fans, signing autographs, visiting local schools.
A really top bloke.” Already Gazza was being seen drinking but, according to Steve, at first
that wasn’t a problem with the players. However, a ‘cultural’ divide between Gazza and former Arsenal favourite
Paul Davis who was brought in as coach turned out to be a major one. Steve said: “Football
at this level has been described as like 22 footballers running around like headless chickens. What Gazza and Paul Davis tried
to do was coach them like they were a Premier league outfit.” There was grand talk of bringing
the likes of Les Ferdinand and Teddy Sheringham to the club, of the players becoming full-time professionals. Some of the core members of the team were let go and inadequate replacements brought in. Disenchantment
grew. Crowds began to fall away and the chairman began to get more directly involved, causing a fall-out with Gazza. It was then George Best was admitted to intensive care after his body rejected his transplanted liver. Steve said: “Paul Gascoigne had a massive impact on the lives of so many people in those 39 days. He probably
has no idea of how much good and bad he did. “For a lot of people who crossed his path at
Kettering it was a life-changing experience. People’s livelihoods and careers were dramatically altered by that short
spell, often for years to follow. “His time there was a traumatic period for many people.
Even those who had previously put him on a pedestal found it difficult to see his problems up close. “I’ve
tried very hard to present the story in a balanced way, but there is no doubt it was a very trying, and very destructive,
time for a lot of people who had been incredibly excited when they heard he was coming to the club.” GRIEF at the death of George
Best sent troubled Paul Gascoigne over the edge, a new book reveals. The
Geordie hero went into booze-fuelled meltdown moments after hearing the tragic news. Author Steve Pitts claims Gazza, 42, was drunk before his final two games as manager of non-league
Kettering Town. And it eventually led to the former
England star’s sacking from the Northamptonshire club. Local sports writer Pitts was with Gascoigne when he watched reports of Best’s death on TV in the club’s
lounge on November 25, 2005. He said: “Gascoigne
was genuinely distressed and very emotional. He was so vulnerable that a big part of me wanted to wrap my arms around him
and give him a cuddle. “A smaller part felt
embarrassed to be sitting before a man who had been my favourite English footballer of all time, watching him break up.”
He said a teary Gazza told him: “What a bloke.
All that he had to put up with – a life of being tortured by the Press, the national ones who followed him round.”
And he added: “Some people around the club
questioned how Gascoigne could have been so badly affected by the death of Best and quite how close they were, given the 20-year
age gap and Best having spent his final years in London. “Trying to talk to Gascoigne about anything else was tough. “The forthcoming Saturday fixture against Gainsborough seemed hopelessly irrelevant.” Pitts claimed Gazza got drunk on brandy before that game and decided to wear
a black armband in tribute to his idol. He said:
“The tribute had been hastily arranged and he wore a black captain’s armband featuring a prominent letter ‘C’.
“Gascoigne strayed on to the pitch during
the game. “One moment he was lively and animated,
the next distracted. Even the referee pointed out that Gascoigne did not seem ‘in quite the right state to be on the
line’. Gascoigne attributed his erratic behaviour
to medication, not alcohol, citing the effects of the detox medication Librium.” Gazza was to be at the club for one more game before he was finally sacked. And Pitts attributes
Gazza’s bizarre behaviour at that match to the broadcast of Best’s funeral shortly before kick-off. Kettering defender Brett Solkhon told Pitts: “He was drunk
before that game. He just wasn’t coping. He needed a break from it all. He needed somebody to put their arm around him.”
But while players say they were saddened by news
of Gazza’s sacking the following day, they were hardly surprised. They were baffled by his management style right from his bizarre opening team talk with assistant Paul Davis. The part-timers were shown a video of the French team passing the ball around in the 1998
World Cup final. Defender Wayne Duick said: “We were watching the likes
of Lizarazu, Desailly, Thuram winning the World Cup final for France and he was telling us that was how we were going to play.
“It was embarrassing. Obviously they hadn’t watched the Conference
North. It’s basically just 22 people running round like headless chickens. “He
had a stick and was pointing at the TV saying, ‘This is what you have to do’. We’re sitting there thinking,
‘Has he seen us play yet?’”
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