After six years in Italy and Scotland, Paul Gascoigne returned to English football in March 1998 when he signed for Middlesbrough.
At this stage of his career, Gazza was no longer the force of nature that lit up Italia 90 and Euro 96 as he body struggled to keep up the pace with his footballing brain.
However, his ability to be at the centre of attention and to entertain all around him, remained undiminished.
Schwarzer on Gazza’s time at Boro
Former Boro goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer had a front row seat for all of Gazza’s pranks and hijinks - whether they lit up the dressing room, or left team-mates seeing red.
“Gazza has a heart of gold,” Schwarzer tells FourFourTwo. “All he wants to do is make people laugh, have fun and bring smiles to people’s faces.
“He’d do stuff that was outrageously funny and wrong, but there was never any malice.”
When Gascoigne arrived at the Riverside Stadium, he joined from Rangers at the tail end of a campaign which had seen him score just three goals in 28 games and while his impact had clearly diminished from his early ‘90s pomp, it was clear to Schwarzer that the ability was still there.
“On the pitch, he showed glimpses of the player he had been, but there was frustration because his mind wanted to do things his body couldn’t always keep up with,” he continues.
“What a player, though, and what a person to be around.”
As well as Gazza the player, the Boro squad also saw Gazza the character.
“Sometimes he’d come into training wearing the same clothes for days,” Schwarzer continues.
“One day, he took his socks off and went “Oh my God, these are horrendous”, then found Gianluca Festa’s Armani ones and swapped them for his own. Festa came back, realised what he’d done and started running around the building looking for him.
“When Festa exploded, he exploded, but he couldn’t find Gazza, thank goodness. Festa ended up going home with no socks, because there was no way he was wearing Gazza’s!”
