Footie legend Paul Gascoigne is to team up with pal David Seaman to make their own fishing show.
They aim to have viewers reeling with laughter just as comics Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have done with their hit BBC2 Gone Fishing series.
But the ex-England stars will be probably be coming at it from a more raucous angle given 55-year-old Gazza’s fondness for clowning about.
Former Arsenal keeper David, 58, said: “It will be hilarious because he is a handful when he is fishing, trust me. I’m not sure how much fishing will get done. It will probably involve him taking the mickey out of me and me pushing him in the water.”
Gazza is renowned for his love of angling but has got into various scrapes. On the first day of the Euros in 2020 he fell into a fly fishing lake in Winchester and had to be dragged to safety.
In 2010 as police cornered killer gunman Raoul Moat in Rothbury, Northumberland, he turned up drunk with his fishing rod, cooked chicken and lager to try to defuse the stand-off.
He and David also hit the headlines when they went fishing with team-mate Ian Walker before England’s Euro 96 clash with Spain. David is well aware of his old mate’s troubles but thinks the TV show will do him good.
“I have been speaking to his agent about a TV pilot,” he said. “Gazza enjoys his fishing even though his line spends more time out of the water than in it – because if he doesn’t get a fish in a minute, he changes his fly.
“He has these issues but underneath he has a heart of gold and hopefully he will be on the straight and narrow when we work together.”
David – who has teamed up with Fishing Republic, one of the largest UK tackle shops – reckons fishing is a great way to deal with mental health problems.
“Nothing beats fishing and I’d like more attention given to how therapeutic it is,” he said.
