George Caulkin

[jdckelly]

best of the hacks covering us by a country mile

[DubblyDubblyDubbly]

best of the hacks covering us by a country mile

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

[TheGuv]

Great article

[Ameritoon]

Definitely been my favorite regional journalist, wish he spent more time on us. Or maybe he does, and I just don't notice because I don't read The Times.

[Cronky]

Wasn't Caulkin the far-sighted sage who backed NUST in their campaign against Ashley, talking about all the millions that they'd supposedly raised?

[Kanj]

Caulkin is funny too, his tweets have me in stitches at times.

[AlanSkÃrare]

This is f***ing brilliant.  :thup:

 

Nothing black and white about Gazza

George Caulkin

February 07 2013 12:02PM

 

 

 

 

Pink, pudgy and dipped in chip-fat – I remember Paul Gascoigne. Hair shorn above the ears, gurning grin where teeth should be, shorts too tight – I remember him. As ugly as sin and as sexy as it, too, because with a ball at his boot-tips and running at full tilt, I’ve never seen football so muscular or beautiful. I remember Paul Gascoigne and, by God, I love him.

 

Close to the touchline, an off day at St James’ Park, I remember a shout of exasperation from nearby: “Pull your finger out Gazza, man, you fat b******.” And he did, first one finger and then another, holding them aloft in a rigid V, with a “f*** off” and a wink thrown in. I don’t recall complaints to stewards, demands for an arrest, front-page exposés or questions in the House. I remember laughter.

 

I remember seeing him sprint forward from the centre circle. He looked too big for the pitch, let alone his strip, but when he moved, the ungainly became poetic, although it was a violent sort of artistry – elbows and sharp edges – that took him around, past and occasionally through defenders. It looked like human bagatelle, the ball clacking between his feet, and yet somehow under control, the only aspect of his life that was.

 

 

The North East could not contain him, but talent drained away frequently back then and when he moved from Newcastle United to Tottenham Hotspur, an axis shifted with him. He was such a draw, such a force. When he burst into Sir Bobby Robson’s England squad and refused to be ignored, I remember feeling differently about my country; it wasn’t just Thatcher’s country, it was Gazza’s. And he was ours.

 

That era of Robson’s; Gascoigne, Beardsley, Waddle, Robson, men from a region of coal, steel and shipbuilding. That felt like some sort of affirmation. I remember those tears – “the tears that watered the Turin pitch” as Sir Bobby would refer to them – because for people who adored football it brought a wider acceptance that our sport could bring emotion of a warming kind, even if the source was sadness. He brought change.

 

I remember a kind of role-reversal, Sir Bobby wiping moisture from his face when, in his last, ailing months, he spoke of Gascoigne’s mountainous heart, of how he’d tried to buy his former manager a disability scooter, an absurd act of generosity that he could ill afford. “Paul cried in the service of his country, but it’s far too soon for us to be shedding tears for him,” Robson said then. It still is.

 

“Newcastle saw the start of him, red-faced and chubby though he was back them,” Sir Bobby once wrote. “He could head the ball, pass it, dribble with it, shoot and he’d train all day. He drove his managers mad, of course, because he never lost that precociousness, his cocky stupidity, his willingness to do anything in search of a quick laugh. But he remained so popular because he was such an innocent.”

 

I’ve read about the daft stories. The sweet and heart-melting ones, like when he reported for training at Newcastle as a kid, found nobody there because the session had been cancelled and went carol singing to earn his bus fare home. The daftness that became a mania, a compulsion, the addictions which left his body wracked and mind addled. But I do not know if they are fact or legend and do not remember them, because I was not there.

 

I do not condone the lapses, the appalling behaviour, but do my best not to offer judgments on the private lives of others, for the simple reason that I wouldn’t want judgment on mine. There are exceptions to that, because I’m a hypocrite – Nile Ranger makes my every pore ache – but I try to disassociate Paul Gascoigne the player from whatever “Gazza” now represents.

 

I’ve written before about the temptations Tyneside offers. I grew up with footballers and flirted on the fringes of that extraordinary life and can remember how it felt to have a drink in your hand with faces turned in your direction, how money and alcohol and testosterone and danger can provide a headlong rush. How being close to home can also feel like Hollywood. It was a blast; less so, when I woke up in a hospital, scabbed and reeking

 

I’ve been thinking about Gascoigne this week, and it is only partially because of the latest series of photographs and tales, the drinking, and the slurring and another last chance. I thought of him because of Danny Graham, the centre forward who joined Sunderland from Swansea City last month and has been newsworthy because of his boyhood allegiance to Newcastle and the careless way he once expressed it.

 

I thought of how a career, a life, can be shaped by one action, one comment, one sip, one grave error or, in Gascoigne’s case, one horrendous tackle which led to a compendium of grief. “God knows what he would have gone on to achieve if he hadn’t flung himself so recklessly at Gary Charles, but I think people would have talked about him in the same breath as George Best, Bobby Charlton, Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish,” Robson said.

 

The connection with Gascoigne is tenuous, at best, but you don’t always know what sets something off and I like the fact that Graham wanted to come home, that he pushed for it to happen in the knowledge that it might cause himself a ripple of difficulty. A story does not have to be set in stone, not yet, and an indiscretion about Sunderland in a Watford fanzine does not have to be his; I wish him a bucketload of goals.

 

It is difficult not to think about Gascoigne, because he still forms a frame of reference. As Ian Botham’s absence hung over England’s cricket team until the Ashes were claimed and a different standard set, Gascoigne is still the comparison we make; his potential and personality linger. When Jack Wilshere’s performance against Brazil is examined, it is for echoes of his predecessor.

 

Sir Bobby was a mentor and became a friend, but I’ve never met Gascoigne. I came close to it last May when the statue of Sir Bobby outside St James’, looking out towards the city and Co Durham, was unveiled. He was being interviewed there and I wanted to say something, about the memories he had given, but shied away. He looked shaky and wizened and I doubted he craved saccharine from a journalist.

 

As Gascoigne has diminished, he has continued to nourish my profession and I do not like that. This is not much of a blog and I apologise for it, because I have nothing to add about alcohol or refueling or treatment centres. I hope he gets well, but cannot begin to understand what responsibility lies with him or where others might have intervened. I’m not interested in casting blame. As I’ve made plain, tediously, I just remember him.

 

Gascoigne’s narrative is there, in black and white, and it cannot be altered, but I remember him from before then, shirt streaked in the same shades, sun-lamp tanned and shiny, barging across the grass, boisterous and bossy and delicate. I would give a lot to stop the clocks and plot a course back in time for one more of those moments when he hinted at unshackled possibility, but less for his sake. Him doing his job made me want to do mine.

 

[Guest Phil K]

best of the hacks covering us by a country mile

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

Especially if he's actually got two....

[SEMTEX]

Be a pretty shit nickname if that was the case.

[Minhosa]

What an article that is on Gazza. Superb piece.

[clintdempsey]

[Guest icemanblue]

Wow. Incredible read, that.

[dinotheprehistoricgeordie]

That was wonderfully written.

[Parky]

The king is gone but not forgotten.

[Kanj]

Another wonderfully written article by Caulkin.

[Ketsbaia]

Caulkin's the best.

[Unbelievable]

Contrast that to the Luke Edwards "article" about Llambiass/QPR and it's hard to imagine these men are in the same profession.

[Benwell Lad]

Contrast that to the Luke Edwards "article" about Llambiass/QPR and it's hard to imagine these men are in the same profession.

 

[Taylor Swift]

I don't think you should link articles that are meant to be behind a paywall. It's not good form.

[Guest icemanblue]

It was free for a couple of hours this afternoon.

[Rich]

Being made to pay to read blogs is bad form, despite how good this particular one is.

[Tooj]

Aye exactly.

 

It's quite sad in a way that we don't get to read Caulkin's opinions more due to now having to pay for The Times. He's definitely my favourite football journalist and I'm sure if you asked him "off the record" he'd say he wishes he could get to his audience more as well.

[Taylor Swift]

It was free to view on that site, which had ads and other things. It wasn't free to be copied and posted elsewhere in perpetuity.

 

If you ask Caulkin whether he'd like a bigger audience, he would definitely say yes, but also tell him that he'd be paid much less and I'm guessing the answer will quickly turn to no. He's being paid well by The Times because he's a good writer who generates hits for them.

 

Anyway, it's not a big deal. I just think it's bad form if you post articles that are behind a paywall. The guy is paid to write for that site only. It's not a free article like the trash that Ryder and Edwards write.

[Guest firetotheworks]

The consumer controls the trends of the internet. The sooner those that want profit fully realise this and give us a fair compromise, the better. They'll get nowhere charging for things in that way. It's a rubbish business model.

[Taylor Swift]

That's not what the success of the paywalls behind NY Times, FT and The Times says, though.

 

What is the proper business model for online papers? Ads? They don't make enough from ads. Unless you want serious journalism to disappear and for us to be left with nimrods like Ryder then guys like Caulkin should be supported. This site is very influential and can actually get people to subscribe if they linked the articles in a different way.

 

If the article is free then they still want hits. If you don't want to give them hits then don't bother reading the articles. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Link an excerpt or something. But if an article is behind a paywall then it should really be linked in a different way.