Source: Daily_Mail
Defence solid and ready for the fight, Gazza was absolutely on top of his game
It was a slightly delayed kick off time for this week's programme of choice, due to a floodlight failure at the earlier fixture in ITV's regular Saturday evening of in your face, all guns blazing, don't spare the wattage, nor the laughter 'n tears, light entertainment. [LNB]And if anyone watching the delayed X Factor bun fight thought that that was going to be their one ride on the rollercoaster of emotions for that night, they were sorely mistaken.[LNB]In fact, I was sort of happy for the delay because I must be honest, I approached Piers Morgan's Life Stories: Paul Gascoigne with a genuine sense of trepidation. [LNB] Life of a legend: Morgan grills Gascoigne on his colourful life[LNB] More from Mark Webster... Edge of the Box: A new home, a new show? No, just more of the same06/11/11 Edge of the Box: No question about it - Corden, Redknapp, Bishop, Flintoff and Thompson are a dream team31/10/11 Edge of the Box: Not quite the procession everyone was expecting in Auckland23/10/11 Edge of the Box: How Keys helped unlock Box Nation's hidden gems17/10/11 Edge of the box: Sky Sports face one hell of a challenge to match BBC's superb F1 coverage 10/10/11 Edge of the box: Ninja assassin Savage aims to dance his way into the nation's heart03/10/11 Edge of the Box: They don't make WAGs like they used to25/09/11 Edge of the box: Henson has found an attractive alternative to the World Cup18/09/11 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEAfter all, this is a programme that sets itself up - two chairs, an interviewer, the interviewee, The Truth! - as being a hard-hitting piece of TV journalism. [LNB]Yet with its bear pit of a set, pre-filmed sequences dripping with heart-wrenching melodrama, and a host given to such questions as 'how hard is it to fill the gap in your life?', 'how important has the love of your immediate family been?' and 'what have you learned about yourself?', I genuinely feared the worst for the fragile, flawed, vulnerable, mercurial football genius that was about to be laid bare.[LNB]This sense of foreboding was certainly not helped with an pre-interview sequence that was like a big fight build-up in which Morgan pondered which part of the wounded animal he might poke, and Gazza looked in fear of his sanity.[LNB]But once both protagonists were sitting opposite each other in the arena, I have to say that the man Morgan had just described as 'tabloid super fodder' came out of his corner, defence solid, and ready for the fight.[LNB]Even though there is still something Ozzy Osbourne-like in the gently wavering, slightly hesitant voice, the fact is that the Gazza sat before us - finely honed in a sharp suit and white shirt - was looking absolutely on top of his game. [LNB]The new teeth fitted the head nicely now, he was lean not skinny, bright eyed and steady as a rock. [LNB]Sure, he kind of lost it a couple of times as Morgan pinched away at his forearms to generate a tear, but on the occasions when he reached for the glass of water next to him and took a sip, it was with a firm hand, a steady lip.[LNB]For the sake of my nerves, I was delighted to see that it was very early in the proceedings that our Geordie boy proved he was going to be able to look after himself, answering Morgan's question 'do you blame the press or when you look in the mirror (yourself)?' with the beautifully disarming, perfectly self-deprecating 'Nah. Off license'.[LNB] Highs and lows: From the horror knee injury during the 1991 FA Cup final to the memorable 'Dentist Chair' celebration in 1996 (below)[LNB] [LNB] Gazza doesn't always nail the joke because he can wield a very large slap stick. Yet now 11 months dry and finding new strength through the clearly life-changing Providence Project in Bournemouth, he seems to have found a way to look and laugh and be at one with himself.[LNB]Not that all the good work he's putting in down on the South Coast wasn't put to the severest of tests on the telly. [LNB]Family, colleagues and friends were all enlisted for the film sequences which, just in case you hadn't spotted it from what everyone was saying, were driven by a soundtrack applied with the heavy roller - jaunty, to mysterious, to romantic to funereal being the sequence, for example, involving his relationship with ex-wife Sheryl; his response to which - bloodied but unbowed. [LNB]Whatever the actual truth, he wasn't going to simply roll over and take all the shots on that one, admitting he left her a message apologising for his part in the acrimony, then confessing to the host that he still loved, 'but was not in love' with her. [LNB]Furthermore, he wasn't coy when it came to talking about himself as a player as he told us bold as brass 'in my era, the people around us - the people I played with or against - I would like to say I was better than them. I feared no one on the pitch'.[LNB]Every great sportsman you've ever loved has always thought they could take the opposition home in their pocket, so it was good to see that this last year of self analysis has not manifested itself into trite humility.[LNB] Spurred on: Gazza almost single-handedly took Tottenham to the FA Cup Final, a year after he had shed tears at Italia '90 (below)[LNB] [LNB] All of which is nothing to do with the Gazza that was so irresistible to many of us as a footballer and a person - the devil-may-care nutter that brought a raw honesty to the modern game. [LNB]We heard tales from the dentist's chair of taking over the steering on a double-decker bus AND the 1990 England squad aeroplane, how he went back to his school to see his old teacher who said he'd never make it - 'Mr Hepworth. Ginger beard' - to stare through the window in his classroom door at him and even joking about his drug addled, ill-fated trip to see Raul Moat in his last hours.[LNB]Learning how to enjoy life 'without having a fight with a can of beer' is how Gazza summed it up, but it was Morgan himself who brought the vivid, visceral hour home by describing him as 'the most entertaining, occasionally terrifying, never boring sportsman this country has possibly ever produced'.[LNB]No doubt about it for me, Gazza had, and has still got the X Factor.[LNB] WEDGIESEach week in Edge Of the Box I'll also be bringing you some snapshots of what has been happening in the week of sport on telly. Or as we like to call them... wedgies![LNB]Poker princess Victoria Cohen on BBC4's Only Connect confessed her QPR affiliations as the connecting wall gave us four football ground stands including The Shelf...We saw super surfer Garret McNamara nail a 90 footer in Portugal on BBC News - although how the cameraman didn't fall off the front of his board...Day two of the South Africa v Australia Test from Cape Town on Sky Sports and the commentator observed 'there we have Australia's fastest-growing sport - Merv Hughes' as we see the moustachioed one with a giant tray of sandwiches sitting in hospitality...
