And the story rolls on! A letter for Paul

I have just seen that Chris Evans and Piers Morgan have paid for Gazza to get treatment in America. This is a well meaning and well motivated thing to do. However will it be successful as this is not the first time that the loveable Geordie has entered an American based rehab programme.

I'm going to come clean now and say that I have drunk with Gazza, or should I say I have accepted his hospitality and spoken for a short time with him on several occasions. He will not remember me and I don't expect him to yet for several weeks many years ago in the 80's we shared the same hotel on the M25 North of London.  Also present at times were Paul Stewart and the now infamous Frank McAvennie along with several of my work colleagues at the time. I found young Paul very friendly, and as the late great Sir Bobby Robson described him "as daft as a brush". I saw no malice in him but I did see a child trapped in a young man's body. Now I mean no bad things by that but a reflective view with a professional eye. Here was a young man doing manly things, earning large amounts of money and vested with the trappings of football celebrity.

I saw a wonderful talent that was being used as a commodity without the support that a wonderful talent needs.

I was still fighting my own demons at the time. My father was still in my life, still loving the booze more than his family and although I thought I'd escaped by living and working in London I knew there was only partial relief for me. For Gazza all I saw was a long and winding road that would lead the same way of George Best. And sadly I see that has happened.

A lot has been written about the footballer, the man, the husband and the celebrity by far greater commentators than I so I will not presume to enter their revered territory. What I will say though is that in creating this leviathan that is the tainted talent story they have in many ways made things worse for him. He is not his own worse enemy, although like all of us he has his gremlin hiding away at the back of his psyche, he is a product of a society that allows such monsters to be created. Paul the man I suspect is still Paul the boy desperately wanting to be loved hoping that he can still kick a ball around with his mates down the park on a Saturday afternoon. Gazza the image is still an out of control roller coaster of emotional platitudes heading downhill faster than any rocket propelled jet ski.

I was asked the other day on twitter by a friend could I help him?

Yes I probably could but only if the whole circus goes away. For it is Paul I am interested in saving, not Gazza.

Paul if you are listening take my thoughts and love.Know that I have seen the very worst ravages that alcohol bestows upon human beings. Find strength in who you are not your image and believe that you can come out on the other side of this thing.

And if you need my help, I will gladly give it. Not for money, not for fame but because you need to know that support will be there in the most unlikeliest of places and that in the quietness of our soul we discover who we are and how strong we can be. And it will be returning a favour for you in a way have helped me understand my father a little better!