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Tag Archives | Gascoigne

Our Friends In The North: The Rise And Rise Of Newcastle United

April 1, 2012 · Comments ( 6 )

Note: This Dispatch trades in lazy stereotypes. Newcastle fans, read to the end.

On a trip up to Edinburgh on the East Coast Main Line last August, one of the stops en route was Newcastle. As the train approached the city, the Tyne Bridge emerged with industrial majesty from the sunny haze of the train’s window and I inexplicably felt a slight shiver of awe. Almost immediately, as we waited to pull away from the station, we were greeted with the sight of a man in a Newcastle home shirt banging on one of the station platform’s vending machines uttering barely decipherable curses, having lost his money whilst trying to stay steady on his feet.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Harry Redknapp…

October 30, 2011 · Comments ( 5 )

…and other tales of footballing niceness.

If I were to ask you what your favourite biscuit was, you’d probably tell me it was a chocolate digestive or a Jammy Dodger. Maybe even a custard cream. For the record, I’m particularly partial to a bourbon myself. I’d hazard a guess that a ‘Nice’ biscuit would rarely feature. That’s a shame. When I’m walking down the supermarket aisle deciding upon which particular tea-break treat I fancy, I tend to overlook the sugar-coated coconut biscuit but when on occasion I do partake, I often find that a ‘Nice’ biscuit is, well, nice.

Oligarchs Prefer Blondes

September 25, 2011 · Comments ( 4 )

The final part in the loose ‘Chelsea trilogy’ of Dispatches seems to have pinpointed the root of Fernando Torres’ current woes.

He may end the season with a Champions League medal dangling round his neck. He might go on to score over thirty goals in the Premier League with a record haul of hat-tricks. He might even gratefully receive an approving thumbs-up from a famously impassive Russian. But no matter what he does, Fernando Torres’ horrific miss in front of the Stretford End will forever feature in various Christmas cash-in blooper DVDs fronted by an assortment of ‘funnymen’ like Michael McIntyre or footballing ‘characters’ like Ian Wright.

Read more on Oligarchs Prefer Blondes…

The Great Divide

September 4, 2011 · Comments ( 1 )

Whenever I venture beyond the familiar environs of the M25 boundary, something strange seems to happen to my accent. For some reason it plummets to the depths of the dropped ‘h’ and the swallowed consonants of the rent-a-Cockney stereotype so despised by non-Londoners and Londoners who don’t actually make a living sewing fake pearls onto tatty waistcoasts for the amusement of gurning tourists.

I Heart Manchester United: A Confession

May 29, 2011 · Comments ( 3 )

Picture the scene. The Champions League Final, 1999. Reading University Student Union Bar. My future wife and best friend have just witnessed Teddy Sheringham’s last-gasp equaliser against Bayern Munich and she’s dancing on the sticky, alcohol-sodden floor whilst he’s lying on a pew in disbelief. Cue Solksjaer and we all know what happened next.

Myths and Legends

April 10, 2011 · Comments ( 5 )

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen The Wire in its entirety do not read this piece.

The story of my great uncle Nikos is a much-told story in my family. Fighting for the British in the Second World War, he was captured by the Germans and taken to a prisoner of war camp. Through sheer bloody-mindedness and ingenuity, he managed to escape his captors and found sanctuary in Greece thinking that being amongst fellow Hellenes would keep him safe. He hadn’t accounted for collaborators and he was soon re-captured and suffered at the hands of the Nazis. His survival instincts however, were unquenchable and he broke out for a second time, spending the rest of the war hiding in Switzerland.

Out Of The Shadows: Arsenal and Me

March 13, 2011 · Comments ( 13 )

I’ve been dreading this Dispatch all season. The Arsenal one. Whatever I write in the succeeding paragraphs will no doubt be dismissed by those from N5 as the conjecturing of a Spurs fan with all the attendant bias that inevitably comes with bitter, local rivalry. That may prove to be true to some extent. Nevertheless, what follows is an attempt to put into words the somewhat conflicting and troubled relationship I’ve always had with this club. In no way is this a platform to bait. It never has been. So if you are an Arsenal fan reading this, you’ve had your disclaimer. Click away or read on. I do not purport to speak for Spurs fans en masse. My opinions are my own and always have been.

Subject To Availability

December 26, 2010 · Comments ( 1 )

From school reports to letters, diary entries to folk tales, Dispatches always likes to keep you on your toes.

What began on the eve of the World Cup as a midnight rambling has turned into Dispatches From A Football Sofa and I’d like to quickly take the chance to thank everybody who has read and supported this little blog of mine.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Joey?

November 14, 2010 · Comments ( 1 )

Much of my working week is spent thinking about and working out the narrative for Sunday’s Dispatch. This obviously has a detrimental effect on my career path and bores my closest ones intensely as I probe for and mull over ideas ad nauseum but such is the proverbial albatross for a football obsessive.

Schoolboy’s Own Stuff

October 17, 2010 · Comments ( 6 )

My heart stops every time I hear the phrase on the news: “Ex-England star, Paul Gascoigne…”. It happened again last Monday with the reports that Gazza had been arrested once again for driving over the limit. It was an almost throwaway remark by the newsreader, coming as it did after the ongoing farce that Liverpool’s protracted sale has become and the increasingly frosty atmosphere that has been descending upon Old Trafford as Sir Alex and the wayward Wayne Rooney ratchet up their levels of public relations brinkmanship. Gazza being drunk. Again. It’s become such a regular occurrence that whenever it happens, the public raises its collective eyebrows and dismisses it as yet another self-destructive incident in the life of a ‘national treasure’ who has been sadly spiralling into a vortex of self-destruction for nigh-on two decades now. He’s newsworthy but only in the sense that we feel that he deserves an honorary mention simply because we feel we owe it to him for all the years past.