Gascoigne ready to pass on experience

It is fair to assume that Edith Piaff and Frank Sinatra do not feature high on Paul Gascoigne's CD play list; he has plenty of regrets, far too many to mention them all.

In an interview on BBC's Football Focus, it was the wild lunge at Gary Charles during the 1991 FA Cup final that the Everton midfielder identified as the start of his problems, which he admitted had been exacerbated by his well documented drink-fuelled antics and subsequent treatment.

This was the new Gascoigne speaking, not the goon of old, and at 34 he seems to have acquired some perspective and diplomatic nous. The interview turned to the contribution that Gascoigne could make to the Professional Footballers' Association new campaign to educate young players about the pitfalls of fame and the disasters that flow from the demon drink. Peter Beardsley had said his old England team-mate was not the man to advise young players on such matters, and Gazza surprisingly agrees. "Peter Beardsley was right to say that," he said, but like a practised politician he did not rule out giving young players the benefit of his mature interpretation of his immature past.

Talking about his place within the game he said: "I would work with kids and tell them not to do what I did. I'd tell them about how drinking can affect your muscles and how not having enough blood supply to your muscles can cause you injuries. At least four of my operations have been down to the drink."

He praised the influence the imports have had on attitudes within the game. "If you look at the foreign players and what they've brought to the game it's been brilliant – how they eat, how they train, how they act, how they stretch. I think it's made our players' eyes open a little bit."

Gazza's tend to go a bit misty. Like many a wastrel newly aware of how much he threw away, Gascoigne is still capable of drifting into the kind of fantasy with which men older than him tend to decorate tales of their past.

"I regret what happened in the 1991 FA Cup final and I regret the boozing. I drank at the wrong times, I got into trouble and let myself down," he said. "Without the drinking I could have been one of the best players in the world – I know I would have been."

Then he mentioned Dunga's influence on Brazil's 1998 World Cup campaign at the age of 36. "I could do that. I can play the one or two-touch stuff..." Suddenly we were in Japan with England and Sven Goran Eriksson, Gazza lining up alongside Beckham, Gerrard, Scholes in a white shirt... "Just put it out of your mind," is the sound advice of his club manager, Walter Smith.