It takes one to know one. A drunk, that is, and a jaded pro, falling from grace through the barroom door into ignominy. The plight of Paul Gascoigne has provoked widespread sympathy as an icon of a generation struggles to cope with being reclaimed by the ordinary. Kenny Sansom knows how he feels.

Sansom may never have enjoyed the celebrity status of Gascoigne, but he knew the pain of dealing with the departure of your best days. It came to him when he was playing for Chertsey Town. “I was driving a borrowed Proton for f***’s sake!” he said. “I was a drunk who couldn’t leave gambling alone and I was f***ed. Anyone who has gone from Buckingham Palace to Coronation Street overnight will know the sheer misery of downgrading everything.” And so his wife went to the bingo in her designer clothes and ignored the sneers.

Gascoigne’s problems run deep: marriage, alcohol, mental illness. This month he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act for a second time. Some may have sniffed about how he had it all, but Sansom empathises. He knows how hard it is for players to adjust to sporting afterlife. “I had everything, but was a pampered child who didn’t have a clue how to take care of himself,” he said.

“I see what happens to Gazza and it opens the wounds. Of course it does. I hope he gets the help he needs. I know the first thing is admitting problems because denial was my best friend for a long time. But it is very hard to go from being a big shot to just another bloke. Very hard.”

Sansom says he could not have survived the depression and misery without alcohol, but is now in better shape than the horrible lows that led to him wandering the streets of Marbella, asking locals where the Arsenal team hotel was. Or having his family discover him comatose in a hotel room, surrounded by bottles – they thought he had committed suicide. Or having his daughter wrap up her baby and trawl the pubs to find her oblivious father.

Sansom, 49, said that Britain’s drinking culture has blighted performance. Could it be that 42 years of hurt, and counting, could be partly down to the brazen boozing that went on at that time? “If we were playing well then any indiscretions of behaviour were overlooked, which meant we didn’t learn,” Sansom said.

Passports were provided, plane tickets bought. Players lived half-lives and so it was hard to be rounded people. And the drink took its toll. “If I’d never got involved with alcohol then I would have played over 100 times for England,” Sansom said. “There’s no doubt about that. Your game goes down, it’s inevitable, but that was the thing you did in my day.

“Any young lad, like Tony Adams for instance, coming into the squad saw the lads going out and he tagged along. He wanted acceptance and so he joined in. I remember Tony as a young lad and it’s sad that he saw what we were doing and then, years later, it comes out he has a drink problem. But everyone was in the same boat. My wife once went to see George Graham [the former Arsenal manager] to beg for help, but he said I had to help myself. He was right.”

Sansom still played 88 times for England, a record for a full back, but the legacy of that Arsenal era was a miasma of problems for Sansom, Adams, Paul Merson, Graham Rix, Ray Parlour et al. How good could they have been without the drink? Sansom does not like to contemplate that.

He sees brighter times ahead for England. “I imagine there are two or three players at Man Utd who like a glass of wine with their meal on a Saturday night and that’s it,” he said. “It’s different now and rightly so. We’ve caught up to other countries.”

Having lost his wife and almost died through his alcoholism, Sansom knows players will always struggle with the temptations that come with a life of chasing fame and whisky chasers. He has penned his memories in a book, To Cap It All, published by John Blake, but admits it would be better if players were made to take more responsibility for themselves rather than having a posse of slaves and sycophants milk their fame.

Ashley Cole, he thinks, will be a key part of this English revival. “He has to be honest and say he is better than he has shown over the last 18 months,” he said. “I’m sure the personal problems, the stick from the fans and the media profile have affected his game, but I expect him to end next season as one of the top three full backs in the world.”

Bitter days behind, better days ahead. English football may have its problems, but at least it is not drunk with success.

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football