Managerial and Coaching Career
Having already gained some coaching experience in China, he signed for Boston United on 30 July 2004. After being at the club for 11 games he left (partly as a result of the club refusing to let him participate in the reality television show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!) on 5 October, to begin a football coaching course. After leaving Boston, he stated that he was interested in taking over as manager of Scottish side Greenock Morton, but this came to nothing.
In mid-2005 he spent two months as player-coach at the recently founded Portuguese team Algarve United, but he returned to England after a proposed contract never materialised. He was appointed manager of Conference North club Kettering Town on 27 October 2005, and also planned put in enough money to own one-third of the club to show his commitment. Previous manager Kevin Wilson was moved upstairs to become director of football, and Paul Davis was appointed as the club's assistant manager. Bookmakers put odds on Gascoigne getting the sack before Christmas, though he insisted that he was at Rockingham Road "for the long haul". Attempts to get new sponsors on board were successful, though results on the pitch soon went against the "Poppies". His tenure at Kettering lasted just 39 days, and he was dismissed by the club's board on 5 December. The club's owner blamed Gascoigne's alcohol problems, stating that he drank almost every day he worked. Gascoigne later claimed that the owner had interfered incessantly and harboured ambitions of being a manager himself, despite knowing little about football. He explained that him appearing drunk in an interview with Sky News was due to his poor mental state, tiredness and prescribed medication. He was never on a contract at the club, and was never paid for his six weeks work, nor was he given the chance to invest money in the club as he had first planned.
Gascoigne came close to being appointed manager of Garforth Town in 2010. Gascoigne was never seen at a Garforth Town match, and after weeks of talks between his agent and the club he decided to turn down the offer, though reiterated his desire to return to football management.
Read more about this topic: Paul Gascoigne
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)