Feature + interviews: Paul Gascoigne and Gary Charles, The Times, November 2005
The FA Cup final, Saturday May 18
The collision and the aftermath was flashed across television screens throughout the world. Millions looked on and it quickly found iconic status, another in a series of freeze-frames abridging Gascoigne's career. We know them like we do family photographs: Vinnie Jones grasping at the contents of his jock-strap; crying at the 1990 World Cup; playing an imaginary flute after scoring for Rangers; the "dentist's chair" at Euro '96.
The tackle on Charles was a reckless, desperate lunge for the ball. In making it, Gascoigne tore the cruciate ligament in his right knee and many believed his career would end, at the age of 23. In Italy, officials at Lazio, Gascoigne's club-to-be, mopped their brows nervously. There and then, history was joining these two footballers at the hip, making a couple from two disparate personalities: Gascoigne and Charles, Gazza and Gaz, together forever.
Inevitably, the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest became the Gazza Final even though his involvement had lasted barely 14 minutes. No matter, this was Gazza, to whom the word enigma was not nearly enigmatic enough. Then, and ever since, his cartoon life has flickered on, his heart on his sleeve, his troubles on the news pages, in books, celebrity magazines, on the television.
Meanwhile, Gary Charles, almost out of sight, has also been colliding with life, bang. He left prison this week determined to put behind him a catalogue of undignified, humiliating episodes.
Like many ex-footballers, Charles' most difficult opponent has
been time; what to do with it, how to fill slack days that were once tightly
regimented. Since picking up a serious injury himself eight years ago he has
- as countless other players have done before him - often turned to drink,
sometimes in considerable quantities. In January he was sentenced to four
months for dangerous driving and failing to provide a specimen. Eight hours
after his arrest, he still had four times the legal driving limit of alcohol
in his blood.
"I drank until I fell asleep. I'd been a footballer for all those years
and it was all I'd known. I was trying to plug the gaps that football used
to fill in my life," he says.
His regular court appearances and two prison sentences have brought him the tag 'Boozy Soccer Bad Boy' from The Sun while his local paper, the Derby Evening Telegraph, has dubbed him an 'arrogant menace' and claimed society is, 'better off, and safer, with him behind bars'.
This vituperative tone is perhaps understandable after perusing Charles' press file. It proffers an unpleasant man, crashing into garden walls in his car, being abusive to police and the public, arguing with judges who, when passing sentence, have referred to him as a 'lout' and a 'a silly young man.' Reading them closely, it is manifest that he has been given ample opportunities to redeem himself and been offered professional support.
This profile doesn't fit the man I meet in a café in Derby just four days after his release from Nottingham Prison. He is attentive, friendly, likeable. He still has a sportsman's healthy aura, the eyes shining, his boyish good-looks intact. Unlike some footballers he hasn't asked for payment or laid down conditions on the interview. "I haven't actually hurt anyone," he says at several points. Except himself and his family, that is. "I know, I've let a lot of people down."
He began his career as a teenager at Nottingham Forest. Several clubs had turned him down because of his slight stature but Brian Clough, Forest's then-manager, wasn't deterred. He told the press at the time: "When he plays a one-two he goes like a gazelle. It's so effortless that at first it looks as if he's not moving, yet he's 40 yards up the field."
Just days before the infamous cup final, Charles had been selected for the England squad. A friend had told him the news and it was confirmed when he bought a morning newspaper. On his way back from the newsagent's he was involved in a tragic accident. A young motor-cyclist clipped his car and crashed into a lamp-post. He died later in hospital. "I had to go the inquest afterwards. It was obviously a really upsetting experience," he says.
He played twice for England under Graham Taylor before moving across the east Midlands to join Derby County and then on to Aston Villa. He picked up the injury that precipitated the end of his career while playing for Villa against West Ham United in April 1996. The ball was played over his head and as he turned to give chase his studs remained fast in the turf. "I know it sounds daft but I looked down and thought for a second I'd put my boot on the wrong way round. I'd snapped the bones, the ligaments, the lot." While he was on the ground he heard team-mate, Paul McGrath, utter, 'Oh Jesus' and some of the other players were so shocked they said it affected their performance.
He did not play again for a year. "That was hard to take. I'd been active every day and then I'm watching the other lads out there running about. It seemed to drag on and on. You ask any footballer and he'll tell you the worst thing is not playing, having nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon."
At this point he was 'drinking more than most' but still classed it as social drinking. "I suppose I had the time on my hands and the money to spend," he says.
He left Villa and signed for Benfica in January 1999 while Graeme Souness was manager. He was injured on the first day of training and left soon after Souness' departure to join the team he supported as a boy, West Ham. Injuries continued to blight his career and in July 2002, at the age of 32, he announced his retirement.
"I went from having this fantastic full life to nothing really. I'd be in dingy little pubs drinking on my own. I didn't even enjoy alcohol. I was drinking to forget," he says. He became estranged from his long-term partner Michelle and their young boys, Reiss, Finley and Jaden.
The drinking binges escalated after the death of his step-father last year who had brought him up from infancy with his mother, Rita and brother, Dean. His biological father, a professional cricketer, had died of heart attack at the age of 26.
He was imprisoned again in the summer for a breach of his curfew terms, removing an electronic tag to fly to Spain for a holiday. "Prison is such a culture shock. It's just like you see in the films, walking around the yard and all that. When they shut the door at night it's a strange feeling knowing you're stuck there until it's opened again."
Now released, he is zealous about reclaiming his family and his life. "I got the cones out in the back garden yesterday and was having a kick-about with the kids. It was brilliant. Then we were all digging, even the little one." He also wants to spend time on a property business he set up a few years ago, buying and renovating houses.
As he speaks, all happy and glad to be free, born-again to sobriety, it is still difficult not to believe it is much easier for him to fail than succeed and that those dreadful press cuttings form a sordid countdown. There is the paradox that prison for Charles has been a similar environment to life at a football club. It runs by routine, the hierarchy is sacrosanct and the camaraderie robust. The next few weeks are vital. He has to learn to live without sport once and for all, to accept a life more ordinary. For most of us this comes natural, but we haven't seen the other side.
Football is briefly off his agenda once more but Paul Gascoigne, aka Gazza or G7, is still in demand, still in the news. He's doing as he pleases right now - the odd chat show, trips out with the family, picking the kids up from school.
His phone goes all the time, it probably always will. To get to Gascoigne you still have to go via his loyal mate, Jimmy Gardner. Mention Gary Charles to either of them and within minutes Gascoigne is calling you back.
I tell him about the problems that have beset Charles in the past few years. For a few minutes, he can't believe it. "This is all news to me," he says constantly. This might be because within the game, Charles was always considered a quiet, reserved man, a stranger to trouble. His press profile was negligible because as a young player he'd been advised by Brian Clough to keep his thoughts to himself and his team-mates.
Dwight Yorke knew him this way when they played together at Aston Villa for four years. "I don't think I could have met a better professional than Gary. At the time I was there, he was exceptional on the field and a great lad," he says.
They last met up in London when Charles was with West Ham United. "You hear through other players and read in the media what happens," says Yorke. "It's terribly sad because here was someone who had the whole world at his feet but you never know what happens behind closed doors. There was never any sign of things going down a rocky road when I was at Villa and I knew him as well as anyone back then."
Gascoigne has said many times that the cup final tackle on Charles was nothing personal. Anyone could have been on the receiving end. In fact, a few minutes before, he had had almost removed one of Garry Parker's ribs with another lunging tackle. He admitted afterwards that he had been over-motivated, acting, in his own words, 'like a mad bastard.'
As he was being carried from the field at Wembley, Gascoigne asked about Charles' well-being. In his autobiography, Gazza, My Story, he writes: 'At first I worried that I had hurt him, a young player just beginning his career, but he got up and seemed okay.'
The pair next met up a few years later when, by chance, they were on holiday in Florida with their families. "I was laughing and joking with him and his missus, telling them he'd better not get too close to me, I'd just end up hurting him again. I was just having a bit of carry on with them."
Over the years Charles has regularly been offered money from newspapers to talk about 'the tackle' but has always declined for fear his words might be twisted to imply he felt some resentment towards Gascoigne. "This might sound weird but I've often felt sorry for Gazza. I haven't had half the stress he has. He can't do anything without people being on at him. Those that know him know what an honest bloke he is."
Famously, Gascoigne has had to deal with his own addictions and is not surprised that ex-players sometimes turn to drink. "This is what happens with lads when their career ends and they've loved the game and lived for it. What are they going to do with the rest of their lives? Booze becomes a comfort. You have a drink on the Monday, another on the Tuesday and before you know it you're addicted."
He feels his most important move was to admit he was an alcoholic, and believes
Charles should do the same. I tell him that Charles did not use this word
to describe himself during the four hours we were together, and that he also
believes he can 'sort himself out.'
Gascoigne is instantly concerned. He asks me for his phone number. "I've
got to speak to him. I'd do anything for Charlesy or anyone in the situation
he's in. He's such a good lad. You can't sort it out on your own."
He's driving to a radio station as we speak, a hundred or so miles away from Derby. He asks Gardner, who I assume is driving, whether they can make a detour. "We can't make it today," he says, genuinely disappointed. "Tell him to keep it together, man. I'm going to make sure I get over there."