Following up to the Guardian’s web chat featuring one of, if not the greatest, naturally talented England footballers ever, here’s a Paul Gascoigne flashback featuring a quite superb hat-trick for Rangers against Aberdeen during the 1995/95 season.
By the time Walter Smith came in for Gazza post Lazio, the midfielder’s career seemed to be floundering. Whilst being extremely aware of his famous extra-curricular activities, Smith took the troubled but outrageously talented young man to Ibrox. In his debut season Gascoigne would go on to be crowned Rangers’ player of the year scoring 19 goals in the process, some-what more poignantly than that, given some well documented personal demons, Gazza would comment “Walter Smith saved my life” .
Summing up his season and the resurgence of his talent nicely, Gazza scored one of the greatest hat-tricks to be seen on British Isles on the way to his sides Scottish league/cup double.
Commenting on the goal, Gazza even said;
It is right up there with some great moments for me, like when we flew back from the World Cup in 1990 after doing so well, and the 1991 FA Cup semifinal when Spurs beat Arsenal. But this will be hard to beat.
