Gareth Bale may have shone on the pitch in recent years but this man attracted more adulation and genuine love from a White Hart Lane crowd like no one seen before or since.
Arguably the greatest talent to come out of the British Isles since George Best, Gascoigne had the advantage of playing for England. Meaning a place on the world stage eventually beckoned and it was @ Italia '90 that he came of age, with him England's dreaming almost became a reality, close but no cigar. But it was in his failure and resulting tears for souvenirs that Gazzamania was truly launched, scenes reminiscent of a boy band concert at White Hart Lane the following season were witnessed and he was everywhere from chat shows to Top of The Pops.
From the streets of Newcastle - and eventually starring for his boyhood team, he played the game with the same schoolboy enthusiasm throughout his career moving on the Tottenham after being scouted by the legendary Bill Nicholson. He could have gone elsewhere as recent stories reveal but a promise of a house and a car for him and his family* saw Gazza head down south and whisked away from that man Fergie's sweaty grasp.
From then on, we all know how it ended. He took us single handedly (or should that be footed?) to the FA Cup Final of 1991, providing us with tears of both joy and sadness along the journey and helped enable the club that we all love to survive - a movie script ending sacrificing himself so that others may live.
Though his career briefly peaked with a trip North of the Border @ Rangers and proved to be the Scots undoing with that goal @ Euro '96, from then on it was the decline, less appearances for lower teams, eventually lower leagues as well as abroad, someone really should have had a word with him.
It was obvious he was having trouble walking away from playing the sport he loved.
With his demons off the pitch that we couldn't possibly try to go into or solve on this blog, we see him now as a shadow of his former self with a tinge of regret of what might have been, but with hope that he is at last happy in himself that although he can no longer entertain on the pitch he can at least try to off of it as a pundit and storyteller.
*remember this was the pre-Levy years!
