After winning the Young Player of the Year award as a youthful Newcastle United player in 1988, Tottenham and United went head-to-head for his services. Sir Alex Ferguson received an assurance from Gascoigne that a deal would be struck. However, on returning from holiday in the summer Ferguson was greeted with the news that Newcastle had gone ahead with the Tottenham offer, later explaining that, in the United manager’s belief, Tottenham had given Gascoigne’s family a house as a sweetener. Ferguson claimed recently that, had he indeed joined United, ‘Gazza’ might have stood a better chance of fighting off the demons that still haunt him today.
