Chris Evans talks about his fears for Gazza

Oct 4 2009 by Gordon Barr, Sunday Sun

“I TALKED to him about four weeks ago on the telephone, he was in his flat and he had just bought a parrot and it was flying around the room and he was trying to catch it.

“Let’s hope there was a parrot there!”

Chris Evans is recalling the last time he spoke to his good mate Paul Gascoigne. The pair have been firm friends for years and have been pictured on numerous occasions out on the lash in London.

They were heady days for the two of them, but Evans, about to take over Radio 2’s breakfast show from Terry Wogan, says, for him, they are in the past - and he hopes Gazza follows suit.

His parrot comment has more than a touch of irony to it, and is a statement on what many, including his friends, believe to be Gazza’s present state of mind.

“He’s still going through it. I have fortunately found a bit of peace in my life, and he hasn’t, and I feel for him as far as that is concerned,” added Evans, who is signing copies of his autobiography in Newcastle on Tuesday.

“On his day, in his day, there was no finer person on the planet.

“But no more complex a person either - and no more mismanaged a person, I have to say.”

Gazza’s rise and fall have been well documented, but Evans has been with him through all the turmoil for more than a decade.

The ex-footballer’s shock at being excluded from the World Cup squad in 1998 was not shared by the fans who were growing tired of reading about his debauched lifestyle.

It was a photo of a boozed-up and overweight Gazza sharing a kebab with Evans before England manager Glenn Hoddle announced his squad which sealed his fate.

Four years ago Gazza told how he and Evans helped each other back into their careers - in a sauna.

The former Newcastle, Middlesbrough and England midfielder said he had had a “horrific” year battling alcoholism, panic attacks and obsessive compulsive disorder.

But he revealed it was a trip to his friend’s sun-kissed holiday home in Portugal that sealed his decision to become manager of Kettering Town.

He said at the time: “A couple of months ago me and Chris were at his villa in Portugal, talking in his sauna. We were just sitting there when Chris said, ‘Paul, what do you want to do with your life?’

“I told him I didn’t know, but that I’ve got a few ideas.

“He said, ‘I’m going to come back on TV, definitely, I want to be back to my best again,’ so I said, ‘I want to be a manager’.

“Chris said, ‘why don’t we just go for it?’ Now I’m manager of Kettering and he’s back on TV so things are looking fantastic for the both of us.”

However, Gazza was sacked as Kettering manager in December 2005.