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Your support makes all the difference.The bridge over the Yellow River modelled on the one spanning the Tyne might bring back a faint glimmer of the past but the young Paul Gascoigne could never have imagined his career would come to rest in the world's most polluted city on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
English football's most mercurial talent has been salvaged by Gansu Tianma, a team which means "Heavenly Horse", although since they finished bottom of the Chinese B Division with four wins from 22 games last year the horse the club most resembles is Hercules, the nag which pulled Albert Steptoe's cart.
Since being released by Burnley in the summer, Gascoigne's search for a club has taken him to the United States, where he was rejected by the Washington-based DC United, while the League of Wales outfit, Total Network Solutions, have also flirted with him. Since, at 35, he is younger than Gianfranco Zola, whose glittering performance took Chelsea into the fifth round of the FA Cup on Sunday, there is real poignancy that he can only find work at the bottom end of Chinese football – a top-division club, Liaoning Bodao, turned him down because of fitness concerns.
Nevertheless, after a World Cup in which they were totally eclipsed by South Korea and Japan, the Chinese government can offer Gascoigne significant sums of money. His one-year contract, funded by the state in an effort to encourage the game, is believed to be worth between £300,0000 and £500,000 and, despite a lucrative 18-year career in football, Gascoigne is not as wealthy as some of his peers. He will be required to act as assistant coach and help with Gansu's youth team.
"I have been missing football and this is a big opportunity for me," he said. "The manager speaks good English and some of the players do. It is an opportunity to be a player-coach and enjoy both sides of football."
In a country where face and appearance are everything, Gascoigne will have to rein in his gift for causing offence. There can be none of the belches with which he used to "entertain" Italian television audiences during his spell with Lazio, and certainly no repetition of his outburst when invited to send a "message to the Norwegian people". "Yes, f*** off Norway," he said.
Gascoigne, however, confessed to throwing himself at Chinese culture. "I've tried everything; duck's head, chicken's feet, bats and everything," said the man whose conspicuous consumption of kebabs helped persuade Glenn Hoddle to remove him from England's World Cup squad in 1998.
As he prepared to fly back to China before the start of the new season, concerns hang heavily over Gascoigne's choice of stage for his farewell bow. Chinese football is mired in corruption and few of its clubs are solvent. Gansu, based in the industrial city of Lanzhou, may play in a 40,000-capacity stadium but they have changed their name three times in recent years.
Although Gascoigne claims to have been training "really, really hard", there must be serious doubts whether he is fit enough even for Chinese B Division football. The Gansu coach, Zong Bohong, said: "We noticed he had one or two shortcomings. One is his physical fitness, another is his leg strength.
"It's fine if he can play the whole match. If he cannot, we can let him play half a match or 30 minutes or even 15 minutes if he can steady the morale of the team. We think he could play a key role in this team. We would like him to be our spiritual leader."
TRAVELLERS' GUIDE TO LANZHOU
Location: Lanzhou sits on the banks of the Yellow River and is the capital of Gansu province.
Population: Three million.
Religion: Mainly Muslim.
People: Han, Hui, Tibetan, Uygur, Mongolian, Kazakh.
Climate: 35C in July, -10C in January. Sandstorms in April and May.
Recent history: 1949: Discovery of oil nearby gives city a major role in petrochemical industry. 1998: Declared the world's most polluted city. According to the World Resources Institute in Washington, the air in Lanzhou is "unbreathable".
Food: Speciality is the spicy beef noodle (Niurou mian). Other delicacies include the pizza-like, beef-stuffed cake eaten at breakfast.
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