For every football fan there are certain magical memories which stand out more than others.

The time your club snatched the title on the last day of the season or the moment your international favourites won the World Cup, for example, are occasions which will rank high up on most people's lists.

Sadly, as a supporter of Sheffield United and England, league titles and World Cups have been a little thin on ground over the past 30 years or so. Thinner, in fact, than Posh Spice on the Atkins diet.

Which means my top football memories are a little more basic and are generally based on not losing crucial games too heavily. And the occasional good throw-in.

However, even those of us who have been enduring a barren spell in terms of success still have at least one, overriding memory which is capable of bringing a smile to our face no matter how low we may be feeling.

For me that moment was Paul Gascoigne's goal against Scotland during Euro '96.

At this point, I was going to describe it to you in all its beauty: the superb control, the perfect timing, the sheer nerve of the man as he flicked the ball up over Colin Hendry's head and volleyed into the back of the net.

Then it occurred to me it might actually be on You Tube. And it is. So for those who want to re-live the moment in pixilated glory, just type in 'Gazza Scotland' then sit back and enjoy.

There is something about that goal that even now, 12 years on, gives me the shivers. Maybe it was the occasion, maybe it was the opponents or maybe it was the beauty of the goal itself.

But, more than any of those things, I think it was the man who scored it. Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne - possibly the most naturally talented player England has ever produced.

Whenever I saw him play, whether for Spurs, Rangers, Everton, Lazio or England, I would sit up in anticipation every time he got the ball. His genius was such that you never knew what he was going to do and his opponents must have felt the same.

Like most people, my first memory of Gazza was back in 1990 when, as a 21-year-old, he took the World Cup by storm and then, famously, burst into tears in the semi-final when he received the booking that would have ruled him out of the final... had England made it.

Sadly, the love for football that made him so passionate about the game has also proved his downfall. After calling time on his injury-ravaged career a few years ago he went into a downwards alcohol-fuelled spiral that culminated in him being sanctioned under the UK Mental Health Act late last week.

There are conflicting reports as to what happened at the hotel where he was staying that provoked the police to take this drastic step. But suffice to say it came about at the end of one of the retired star's two month benders.

Throughout his career he battled against all sorts of problems ranging from an inability to control his drinking to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which would see him wander around his home at night switching lights on and off until the early hours. Now, it seems, he is losing the battle.

While football was still in his life, Gazza was able to cope with these things as he had something solid to focus on. Once the football was gone, so was, without sounding too melodramatic, his reason for living.

He was never cut out for club management as his ill-fated attempt at Kettering proved. And spending the rest of your life as a media commentator is hardly the stuff of which dreams are made.

Normally I find it hard to sympathise with millionaires whose lives go a little awry. There are plenty of us who have to cope with equally taxing problems without the luxury of bank balances that run into seven digits. However, I can't help but feel Gazza is deserving of our sympathy.

A few people will, of course, consign him to history as a very talented footballer who never quite lived up to his potential on the pitch before it started falling to pieces.

But for me, and millions of others, he will always be remembered as an honest, down-to-earth kid who could do things with a football most players only dream of.

Get well soon mate.

Too little, too late

And now for this week's best example of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez has decided to significantly reduce his fundamentally-flawed rotation policy for the rest of this season.

With only two things left to play for - fourth place and the Champions League - the Spaniard admits there will be less chopping and changing of players over the coming months.

Excellent news. But what he is cunningly failing to take into consideration is that it is that very rotation policy which has meant they only have two fronts to battle on.

Had he not tinkered with the team at every single opportunity during the first half of the season then they would probably be competing for the title and the FA Cup as well. They might even have been in last Sunday's League Cup final.

I have to admit I now have serious doubts whether Rafa is the right man for the Anfield job.

It would be great to see Liverpool fighting it out at the very top of the league and providing a realistic title challenge to the rest of the big four.

But I think if that was going to happen under Benitez it would have done so already.

It's a hard life

I have to say I was shocked, stunned and not a little amazed at Jonathan Woodgate's recent moan over house prices.

The England defender has earned millions over the last decade despite spending most of his career hanging out in doctors' waiting rooms. And his contract with new club Spurs is rumored to be worth upwards of £70,000 a week. Yet, he still managed to complain that living in London was too costly.

"I think you could buy 10 penthouses up north for the price of something down here. House prices are a joke, they are. It's unbelievable," he said, without a hint of irony.

Well, Jon, imagine how tough it is for those people who actually work for a living...

There's something about Andy...

Looks like I rattled a few cages with last week's piece about Andy Cole and his unparalleled achievement in being the worst player ever to play in the Premier League. Here are some of the reactions:

"Your comments about Andy Cole in The Sunday Times were totally wrong and extremely unfair. As a Manchester United supporter for more than 30 years I have seen Cole play on many occasions on television and I have also watched him live at Old Trafford and he has always been a model professional.

"You don't score 200 goals for clubs like United and Newcastle unless you are a good player and that sort of record should speak for itself. That is not to say he doesn't miss chances but other players also miss chances without you calling them the worst player ever to play in the Premier League.

"I think you should take a closer look at Sheffield United's strikers before you start making ridiculous accusations about other team's players." - David Grech, e-mail.

"I wholeheartedly agree with your comments about Andy Cole. I am a Manchester United fan and I have to say for every goal he scored for us he missed 10.

"I would love to have seen a proper striker playing for us during those fantastic years when we couldn't stop winning. Somebody like Alan Shearer who would have been scoring goals for fun.

"Having said that I disagree with your comments about Niklas Bendtner. I think he will turn out to be a classic English-style centre forward. He is not the finished article just yet but he has plenty of potential.

"Give him a couple of years and he will be one of the great strikers in the Premier League.

That is not an easy thing for a Manchester United supporter to say about an Arsenal player!" - Jonathan, e-mail.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com