He was born and bred in Gateshead, this famous Geordie lad
And on his seventh birthday, got a football from his dad
It didn’t take him long to learn to play that game
Though the other kids scoffed him, he was on his way to fame

CHORUS
That’s Gazza the Geordie from Gateshead on the Tyne
Scoring great goals is his game
Gazza the Geordie from Gateshead on the Tyne
Now all the world knows his name

He won his first trophy, when he was only ten
In a school’s competition he was a striker then
He made his Magpie debut at the age of seventeen
Then started the next season with Newcastle’ first team

He was transferred to Tottenham in nineteen eighty eight
For a record two million, they knew that he was great
It was then that England’s manager just had to call him up
And he scored in the qualifier for the next world cup

It was in the ninety world cup, in sunny Italy
That Gazza the Geordie went down in history
For his tears on the pitch when shown a yellow card
Cos had England reached the finals, he knew he would be barred

Words & music by Wilf Mitford
Photo Credit : Newcastle Evening Chronicle

Credits: Wilf Mitford, Vocals, Guitar; Julia Mitford, Vocals; Pamela Mitford, Fiddle

World cup fever is upon us once again and it brought back such fantastic memories of watching games with my mum in the 80s and 90s.  Dad was never into the sport, but mum always got into the games in a big way.  We probably weren’t watching every match, but we definitely screamed at the tv during a few big matches. 

You’d have to be living under a rock if you don’t remember the infamous moment from the 1990 world cup when Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne got a yellow card in the semi-final against West Germany, which he instantly knew would mean he would not make it to the final.  Gazza burst into tears, which at the time in sport was not a common occurrence, launching him into the hearts of the nation.  Everyone could see and understand the disappointment from someone who’d worked so hard.  Everyone had been so behind the whole team and the Geordies were of course behind Gazza in a big way!

Dad’s songwriting was always driven by what was happening locally and having a Geordie in the World Cup, and Gazza’s yellow card, were of course huge talking points at the time.  Although he didn’t follow the game Dad took his inspiration from local news coverage and wrote this great little song which gives a potted history of Gazza’s career.  

Gazza the Geordie from Gateshead by Wilf Mitford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://mitfordmusic.wordpress.com/.