http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/05/05/exclusive-gazza-is-back-in-hospital-89520-20406043/

very sad

I was wondering whether Gascoigne's life might have taken a different turn had he signed for Man Utd under Ferguson. I reckon the poor, stupid fucker would have had at least a fighting chance.

Someone else had the same idea.

Utter balls.

Alex Ferguson's a football manager, not a social worker or a psychologist. Stan Collymore says the same about himself in his self-pitying autobiography, that it could all have been so different if only he'd been signed by Ferguson for Man Utd. Who knows, maybe things could have been different for Kurt Cobain if only he'd been good enough at football to get taken on at Man Utd in the eighties- and Dorian Gray, he wouldn't have made half such a mess of that portrait if he'd been taken under 'Fergie's' wing at a young age. And did not Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars suggest much the same of Caligula?

QUOTE:
I was wondering whether Gascoigne's life might have taken a different turn had he signed for Man Utd under Ferguson. I reckon the poor, stupid fucker would have had at least a fighting chance

There's an open goal, if ever.

Worth remembering that Man Utd were a circus in the late 80s, the Newcastle of their day, so it isn't as if Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne would have slotted smoothly into a winning team or anything.

Possibly he might have had to change his agent.

Ferguson's first great young protege was Lee Sharpe, who having missed the best part of a season with meningitis was effectively replaced by Andrei Kanchelskis.

If Gazza had gone to United not Spurs in 1990, and suffered the inevitable self-inflicted injury his style of play invited, the manager wouldn't have shown him any more sentiment either. Cantona would still have come in, and Gazza would, if he'd been lucky, have spent four or five years knocking about waiting for chances from the bench, sat alongside Nicky Butt.

I wasn't endorsing the idea expressed by Richard Williams in his article, by the way.

And *applause* for You Are The Ref.

Rumours at the time and later suggested Sharpe's meningitis was actually a cocaine addiction. No source, so apologies if this is actually bollocks.

Eric Cantona was the one whose presence galvanised United & moulded them into a winning team instead of a group of talented individuals like Gazza was. If Gazza had been a few years younger & joined Utd when they were winning titles regularly, he'd have settled, not only in his career but in life in general, like Steve Bruce & Bryan Robson did ( men who liked a pint too - and came from the North-East ).

You speak from a position of deep knowledge about Gascoigne's mental problems and much experience of mental healthcare, I presume?

Or is what you said just glib nonsense about North-eastern player + drinking habit + titles at Man U = happy individual?

Gazza was, if I read Aidan correctly, a group of talented individuals. Perhaps he simply failed to "gel".

Bryan Robson's off-field drinking was certainly reduced under Ferguson. If you ignore the fact that it wasn't, of course.

Don't forget, Ferguson got rid of McGrath, Whiteside, Sharpe and Gillespie because of their lifestyles. Gascoigne would have been no different.

Yes, I couldn't help wondering how much happier Gazza's life would have been at late-80s Man Utd, accompanying Robbo, Clayton Blackmore, Paul McGrath and Co through life's complicated byways.

Post of the day from YATR there.

I had an excellent source with knowledge about Lee Sharpe at the time. And he wasn't addicted to cocaine.