Paul Gascoigne was talking to talkSPORT ahead of the European Championships and revealed the angry letter he received from Sir Alex Ferguson after he signed for Tottenham Hotspur rather than Manchester United.
Gascoigne on Spurs
“My dad said, ‘You’re not signing for Spurs, you’re signing for Man United’. I said that to the chairman,”
“He said, ‘We’ll buy your mum and dad a house’. I told my dad and he went, ‘Well what the hell are you waiting for, son? Tell him I need a car. I want a BMW and also I’ll find the house’.
“He hadn’t even left the settee! As I’m driving to Tottenham, I went past Old Trafford and I was actually shaking.
“I thought, ‘He’s going to go off on it with me, Sir Alex Ferguson’. I was petrified.
“I was a mile away from Spurs and I get a call from my sister, she said, ‘If mum and dad are getting a house, I want a sunbed!’ So I think the deal was done on a sunbed.”
The Ferguson letter.
“I was getting fan mail by the dozens and I got this big one, it was from Sir Alex Ferguson,” Gascoigne said.
“He hammered me, ‘You stupid, fat b******’. He told me he had the choice to be manager of Barcelona and Real Madrid – but he chose the biggest club in the world.
“It took him six years to speak to me again.”