Paul Gascoigne has been entertaining his fellow survival show castaways with madcap stories from his playing days.
The former England ace told how he once smuggled an ostrich into Spurs training on the gruelling Italian TV show L'Isola dei Famosi - aka Celebrity Island or 'Island of the Famous'.
Gazza, who spent three years playing for Rome club Lazio, has been a hit with viewers despite having problems with his Italian.
He told fellow L’Isola dei Famosi contestants about a prank with a live ostrich aimed at Spurs teammate Steve Sedgley, who was nicknamed Long Neck.
Manager Terry Venables was asking his squad why Gazza was late for training when he arrived with the bird wriggling around in a brown sack.
Gazza said he had spotted the ostrich in a field and asked if he could borrow it.
“In the morning, I go to the ostrich’s house. The ostrich was excited. ‘Paul Gascoigne, si’,” he told his “shipwrecked” celebrity TV pals.
“I get the f***ing ostrich put my number on it and then put him in the car behind me. I went to training with the ostrich behind like this [he does an ostrich impression] and I said ‘shut up. Be good. We’ll be at training in 20 mins’. So I go to training with the ostrich in the car.
“The boss is waiting, he says ‘where’s Gascoigne?’ And I said ‘hey, I brought you a new player, look, he is very fast’.”
He joked: “The problem was when training finished, I couldn’t catch it.
“I took it back and said ‘it’s no good, it’s fast but it doesn’t score goals’.”
Gazza, 53, also recalled hijacking a London bus on a day out with TV stars Danny Baker and Chris Evans after joining Rangers in 1995. His leg was in plaster due to injury but he got the passengers singing “We’re all going on a summer holiday”.
He said he got back to his hotel room thinking he had “got away with it”. But he turned on the news to: “Paul Gascoigne was seen driving a bus with 70 passengers on board.”
When asked: ‘Where was the driver?’ he replied: “I told him to get off the bus, my bus now.”
Former TV presenter Francesca Lodo was impressed, saying: “I can’t believe it, that’s crazy!”
Actor Gilles Rocca added: “The things you’ve done in your life...”
