Exclusive: A taste of what you'll find in the book

As Mallinger walked, with Ladak, between his own office and the general office next door, he heard the drinks cabinet in his office being opened.

He turned back to find Gascoigne sitting in the chair behind his desk uncorking a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream that had been left over from the Christmas raffle nine months previously. It had been gathering dust.

When it became clear his guest was going to drink the sherry, Mallinger tentatively offered him a paper cup. Gascoigne waved him away and drank straight from the bottle.

The group stayed in the office for another half-hour or so before Mallinger suggested they walk along the back of the main stand to the sponsors’ lounge.

Mallinger said he was shocked at Gascoigne’s appearance, describing him as ‘almost anorexic’, and the alcohol worked quickly on his thin frame.

As they walked down the steps from the offices, Gascoigne stumbled and needed the help of the ever-present Gardner to prevent him falling.

* * *

As Dave Dunham said, because it was Gascoigne people tended to come over all star-struck. Nobody raised their voice. But with a few more noses put out of place, there were the first hint of grumblings, although nobody was yet ready to say, or do, anything which might threaten their place in the new order.

To be part of the Gascoigne experience, even from a distance, was something nobody had expected, and they weren’t willing to give it up because they could no longer hang around in the tunnel.

Anyway, perhaps it would all settle down once the novelty wore off.

* * *

As Davis turned the pages of his flip chart, the players were told how he wanted them to play. He covered fitness levels, diet, dress code, training and told them not to go out 24 hours ahead of matches.

Much of it was what they already knew, and some of the players, having already done a full day’s work, struggled to stifle a yawn. They wanted to get outside and start kicking a ball around.

Instead, they were led off to the sponsors’ lounge, where Davis played a video of the 1998 World Cup final between France and Brazil. He showed a clip of the French back four passing the ball between themselves without a Brazil player in sight and, using a stick, pointed to the players on the TV screen.

He told the disbelieving part-timers this was how they were going to start playing.

* * *

It appears Gascoigne’s temper had been fuelled by drinking wine on the coach on the way to the game. That was the day when many of the players say it became obvious he had a drink problem.

Although he tried to keep a bottle of wine hidden on the coach, he was unsteady on his feet by the time he came to get off. He fell down the steps.

“He literally fell off the bus,” said Brett Solkhon. “With all the press that had started following us around I was amazed there wasn’t a reporter there to see it.

"He stormed onto the pitch and accused the home team of waterlogging it on purpose, saying they’d got the hoses out and that they were frightened to play us.

"This all happened with the Sky Sports News cameras there and it was a lot for us to take in. There were cameras everywhere and none of us were used to that.”

* * *

Gascoigne had been in the boardroom before kick-off, and again strayed onto 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 tried to explain his behaviour by saying it was the result of medication, not alcohol, and blamed it all on the detox medication Librium.

Those who had been in the boardroom say he had again been drinking brandy. Nobody saw him eating anything. He had a cup of coffee with him at the side of the pitch, but this had been topped up with brandy.

Before half-time it was obvious there was something not right.

* * *

Andy Hall also set off for home and when his mobile rang he was surprised to find a tearful Gascoigne on the line: “He was in tears, saying, ‘I’m going to be sacked’.

"I’m sure he was drunk and he was very upset. He was throwing out comments like, ‘Don’t sign for them’ and ‘Get out while you can’, and telling me he’d take me to this and that club. I didn’t really know what to say. What can you say?"

* * *

"People watching that interview were seeing what we’d seen for a long time,” said Brett Solkhon. “The players all knew how bad he’d been the night before and how much it had hurt him to get sacked. He did need to be sacked.

"There are two sides to him but he’s had plenty of chances to help himself and he always goes back to the drink.”

It was an interview which seemed to polarise opinion among the viewing public: many were horrified to see Gascoigne stuttering and stumbling throughout, clearly distressed and often repeating and contradicting himself. They were saddened and sympathetic. Forget the football, this was a man in need of help.

* * *

Moore got into his car and headed to Rockingham Road: “I walked in and they were not best pleased to see me. I went straight into his office, the manager and chairman were sat in there, so I had it out with him [Gascoigne].

"He wouldn’t look me in the eye.

"He listened to what I had to say and then got up and said to Imraan, ‘You’ve got to deal with this, I can’t deal with this’ and he started to walk out of the room.

“I was fuming. You don’t try to get rid of a player via some PR bloke. So I told him he was taking the piss and I wasn’t accepting it.

"I didn’t care who he was, how big he’d been as a player. All he was now was the manager who tried to ship me out behind my back."

* * *

With Peter Mallinger no longer chairman and Kevin Wilson gone, Diuk fretted over whether the club would honour the promises made to him.

One evening, during a training session early into the new regime, Diuk approached Gascoigne: “I said to him, ‘I don’t know if you know, gaffer, but it’s my testimonial year’.”

Gascoigne held his hands up to silence him: “He said to me, ‘Don’t you worry, Diuky, I’ll sort it for you. I’ll fill this ground.”

Gascoigne began reeling off a list of the names he would get along. They included Ally McCoist, Ian Wright and Chris Waddle. “And I’ll get you Robbie Williams,” he told the stunned player:

“He said to me, ‘I can get you 40 grand’ and I was like, wow, all I could see was pound signs."

* * *

Another school he took the trophy to was Brambleside Primary. He told the children that the only other time he had touched it was when he was lying in a hospital bed 14 years previously.

He had been stretchered off the pitch at Wembley with ruptured cruciate knee ligaments 17 minutes into the 1991 FA Cup final after a fearsome knee-high tackle on Nottingham Forest’s Gary Charles. He tried to play on and collapsed before being rushed to hospital, where he watched the completion of the match on television in bed.

Tottenham won 2-1 and Gascoigne's victorious teammates took the trophy to him in hospital that evening.

As he recounted the story for the children, his eyes welled up. “He’s a very nice man,” said 10-year-old Tiarnan Nelis.

* * *

During his short spell in Kettering, he raised the club’s and town’s profile in a way that was unimaginable before.

He has so much goodness in him, and is such a likeable and lovable bloke, that it breaks your heart when it goes wrong.