JUST about everybody had something to say last week about Paul Gascoigne's inclusion in the England squad for the team's next World Cup qualifying match. The football establishment spoke with almost one voice in support of Glenn Hoddle's decision to allow the Rangers man sport the three lions of his chest once again, leaving dissenters Frank McClintock and Terry Neill to plough a lonely anti Gazza furrow in the football world.
In their respective discussions on Sky Sports Saturday and Sky News Talkback programme McClintock and Neill, two Arsenal old boys, were pitted against Rodney Marsh and Eric Hall, two fully paid up members of the Gazza fan club and believers in the "if he can still beat his man on the field it doesn't matter who the hell he beats off it" way of thinking.
"I support Glenn Hoddle's decision completely - the most important thing is England qualifying for the World Cup. I've got sympathy for Paul Gascoigne, we don't know the whole story - the photographs in the paper (showing the bruised face of his wife Cheryl) may have been touched up and his wife may have been exaggerating about the beatings. It's not as if he murdered somebody but the next time that he does something that really, really, really IS bad then Hoddle has to make another decision," said Marsh.
Yeah, but if it's true it's pretty bad, isn't it," said Julian Waters, the show's presenter, of the wife-beating allegations. "Well, it all depends on what you call bad. I mean everybody has family arguments with their wife don't they? We all have arguments like that," replied Marsh.
At this point an uncomfortable and disbelieving McClintock entered the debate by asking Marsh if he'd ever beaten tip his wife, a question that was not appreciated and so was ignored but, while condemning domestic violence, Marsh added that it had nothing to do with football. "Let's get on with the football," he declared.
Except McClintock wasn't quite prepared to let Marsh end it there. "I don't agree with that at all, it's got to have something to do with football because it's how you behave as a person - what you do outside with your life also has something to do with what you do on the field."
That was a view shared by Terry Neill, the former Arsenal manager, who had the misfortune to be paired with football agent Eric Hall in the Talkback discussion on Sky News on Tuesday. "What does it matter if the England team qualifies for the World Cup if in the long run we are chipping away at moral standards and going down the cesspit," said Neill.
Hall wasn't impressed by this line of argument at all, at all. "If he has hit his woman let the police deal with it but don't stop the man making a living - even if Paul pleaded guilty to hitting his wife he should still be allowed make a living," he insisted.
When one of the callers to the programme claimed that any one chosen to represent their country in sport should be a person of honour and integrity Hall nearly fell off his seat. "You'd have a team of dogooders and we'd lose every match," he howled.
Hall would have felt at home on Sky's Hold The Back Page on Thursday night when four football writers discussed the same issue at length. There was no support for McClintock and Neill's view that Hoddle had made the wrong decision, instead the quartet applauded the England manager's "christian" approach to the Gazza problem
"Maybe our views tonight are going to upset a lot of women's rights groups." said the Daily Mail's David Walker. They'll be on before we finish," added a chuckling Bob Woolnough of The Sun. "Yeah, perhaps they'll come in and chain themselves to the desk," said a laughing Ian Ridley (the Independent on Sunday). "Every single women's pressure group rung the office this afternoon," added a sighing Charles Sale of The Express.
Of the four Ridley's line of argument seemed the most confused. After outlining a string of what seemed like very good reasons for dumping Gascoigne from the England set-up he then went on to say Hoddle had made the right decision. "So many people have indulged Gascoigne in his career, he has been surrounded by yes men, people who have catered to his every whim so what he needs now is toughness and honesty from people," he said.
All of which left us wondering just how many chances - the latest of which Hoddle was dishing out - the troubled genius needs before he pulls off a decent impression of a stable human being. But David Walker reassured us all when he insisted that "there's a very charming side to Paul Gascoigne", a claim greeted with choruses of absolutely" from the other three journalists.
The final word in the whole debate goes to Clive Allen who accompanied McClintock and Marsh on the Sky Sports Saturday panel. The recently retired footballer wasn't all that keen on getting involved in the argument between his two colleagues so didn't say a whole lot on the issue. When the discussion finally moved from domestic violence to football he was a relieved man. "I think that Shearer's absence is the one that really smacks every one in the face," he said and as the words left his mouth he wished he hadn't spoken at all.
Clive wasn't the only football man to struggle to say exactly what he meant last week. Louis van Gaal was asked to comment on Gascoigne's absence, through suspension. from the Champions League match between his Ajax team and Rangers on Wednesday night.
"Of course it's good news because Paul Gascoigne can by unusual dribblings a match win for his team and now of course he is suspended then I am pleased," he said. (But hey, none of us is in any position to chuckle at our Dutch friends' attempts at speaking English because, let's be honest, most of them speak the language better than the way that we do talk it).
Brian Laws was another man to struggle with words when he appeared on Sky Sports' Centre on Friday. Laws was sacked from his job as Grimsby manager last week and the Sky reporter asked him if an incident last season, when he threw a plate at Ivano Bonetti in the Grimsby dressing room after a match (resulting in the Italian's face needing a bit of surgery). had been the root cause of his dismissal. Well, I'm sure people are going to throw that one at me," he said.
