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If you played football in the 1980s, 1990s or early 2000s and ever found yourself sharing a dressing room with Paul Gascoigne, you knew you had to have your wits about you.
The former England stars love for a prank was legendary - so much so that back in 2021, we compiled our 50 best Gazza stories, which is a miscellany of tales involving ostriches, commandeered public transport and diplomatic incidents.
While most of these were done for Gascoignes amusement, he also knew when a dressing room stunt could benefit his team.
Gazza on his best pranks
One such example of this is a story Gazza tells us about a novel way he eased the tension before a derby clash with Roma during his time at Lazio.
We were all s**tting ourselves about the match, he tells FourFourTwo. So I went to a pet shop, bought a little mouse and put it in the top pocket of my Lazio jacket.
Dino Zoff was doing a team talk and this f**king mouse kept on coming out onto my shoulder.
I was like, F**k off and kept on putting it back down again. Then the president came in and went, Right guys, I want to give you five grand if you win today.
I said, Make it 10 grand, because I have to pay the mouse five grand. I scored that game, then afterwards I found the mouse in the dressing room, said Cheers and pushed it back in my pocket.
So why did Gazza enjoy pulling pranks so much on his pals and team-mates throughout his career?
Id get bored, he says matter of factly.
And which one was his favourite? I caught this snake, put it in a plastic bag and put it in Roberto Di Matteos pocket after training.
Then I asked if he could lend me some money, so hed put his hand in his pocket
Paul Gascoigne: Eight (published by Reach Sport) is on sale now in print, ebook and audiobook
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