When I was first asked to do Gazza's autobiography I said no thanks, I don't want to do another football book. I'd done a football history book, a book about a club (The Glory Game) and two books of my collected football writings. One was called My Life in Football and one The Fan, based on my New Statesman football columns which I began doing in 1997 and still am, as I write.

I'd even done a football novel called Striker partly inspired by Paul Gascoigne, his life and character, though in my novel he comes from a remote village in Cumbria. He ends up in Italy where he's writing his memoirs while locked up somewhere, though the reader doesn't know he's been kidnapped.

I'd also done two biographies, one about a manager, Joe Kinnear, the other a player, Dwight Yorke, then at the height of his powers, playing for Manchester United and winning the Treble. I was fascinated by his life, coming on his own at the age of seventeen from the little island of Tobago in the West Indies to the winter snows of Birmingham, but alas, he didn't appear much interested in the project. He certainly didn't need the money, as he was getting about £1 million from Nike.

On our first arranged meeting, at his big mansion in Cheshire, I was kept waiting outside for an hour. I knew his address, phone number, mobile number, but I hadn't realised I needed a special security code to even speak through the intercom on his huge security gates. So I just stood there shouting. When I was eventually let in he was with a very attractive blonde whom he introduced as his interior designer, working on new decor for his bedroom, which of course I totally believed.

He messed me around, turned up late, cancelled appointments, but worst of all, which I couldn't have foreseen, he turned out to be a private person. That's how he had survived so well, building a carapace round himself, so no one could get close and hurt him. The book was a bit of a failure.

After all that, I'd decided that's it, my football portfolio is complete. I've had the experiences, and one of them I didn't enjoy and didn't want to repeat.

I told the publisher who had contacted me, Val Hudson of Headline, that if she wanted a yes or no, it had to be no. We had a family drama at the time, Christmas was coming up, then we were going away to the West Indies. Anyway, I'd done football.

Three months later, they had not found another writer and wanted to know if at least I would go and meet Gazza. I agreed to see him at Heathrow Airport. He was on his way to China with his dad and Jimmy Five Bellies, his best friend. They had all had quite a bit to drink, purely, so Gazza said, to fortify themselves for the plane as they all hated flying.

After my experience with Dwight, I wanted to ascertain three things. Would he give me the time? Apart from the fact he was flying off to China, his career appeared to be over, so there should be no problem about making time available. Did he really truly want to do the book? The answer to that was also yes. He needed the money and wouldn't get paid till it had been completed.

Would he open up? This in a way was my most important question. After three hours with him, I was saying 'Gazza, please, no more, no need to tell me that, that's awful, that's disgusting, I don't think readers will want to know that . . .' And that's when I agreed to do the book.

The first problem was connected with China. After only three months or so there, by which time he had been left on his own and his dad and Jimmy had returned to Newcastle, he went into a series of panic attacks and started binge drinking.

From China, he somehow managed to get himself to Cottonwood, a clinic in Arizona, where he had been before. Having thought he'd never return from China, I now feared he'd end up hospitalised in the USA, even before I'd begun the book. But he did return, dried out, this time admitting he was an alcoholic, promising he would never drink again.

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