PAUL Gascoigne has a lump in his throat just talking about it. While the 52-year-old happily seems on top form and in control of his personal demons on a whistle stop tour of Glasgow yesterday to promote Premier Sports’ coverage of Serie A, one unanswered question still reverberates in his head some 11 years on.

Had he listened to David Murray’s overtures and rebuffed Bryan Robson at Middlesbrough to remain at Rangers in March 1998, would he be remembered now as part of a team which claimed the holy grail of ten Scottish top-flight titles in a row, and not just nine?

When Gascoigne left Ibrox in March 1998, Rangers had been overhauled by their Old Firm rivals and were trailing both Celtic and Hearts. But by mid-April, Walter Smith’s side had edged their noses ahead again on goal difference with just four games left to play. Could Gazza have made that all important difference down the stretch?

“The lads were going on about it [ten in a row] all the time,” recalls Gascoigne. “The first championship medal I ever won was when we did eight in a row and the boys were all happy.

“So the atmosphere in the dressing room was intense from about five games to go as we counted down to nine. We’d win and celebrate and then it would be ‘just four games left’ and so on.

“Some of the other players felt that pressure more than me because they’d been there from the start of it all. But when we made it nine it was quite sad in a way. The only song I knew was The Bluebells Are Blue so I joined in with that one but some of my team-mates had their heads down and there were a few tears because they seemed to know it was the end of a great era. The next season would be the last for myself, Ally McCoist, Ian Durrant, Stuart McCall and Richard Gough and Walter left as well.

“People say to me that they don’t know whether or not I’d have got on with Dick Advocaat, that I wouldn’t have known whether to play for him or drink him! Back then I’d probably have tried the second option

“But I remember driving to Middlesbrough to sign and I stopped halfway and cried my eyes out. I spoke to David Murray and he told me to turn the car round and come back but by that time I’d promised Bryan Robson I would go. I had injuries that season, my Achilles was swollen. But it’s a massive regret. I always think, had I stayed would we have won ten in a row?”

He may have been deprived a place in Scottish football’s hall of fame over an allegation of sexual assault which he denies, but Gascoigne feels at home in this country and this city. On a walk from his hotel at 7.30am yesterday morning,he talks of being asked for eight selfies within his first 100 yards.

He can hardly fail to offer his viewpoint on Sunday’s first Old Firm match of the season, a fixture in which he was unbeaten in 11 starts and scored a few goals. There was also a substitute appearance in the pivotal 2-0 New Year’s Day defeat at Parkhead in 1997-98 but it has perhaps excusable if that has been airbrushed from the memory banks.

“I’m fortunate because I played in 11 games against Celtic, was unbeaten and I scored a few as well,” said Gascoigne. “But the atmosphere in those games was something else. I played in a few derbies and the one in Italy was completely different.

“If Lazio beat Roma in the league and Roma went on to win the double plus the Champions League then the Lazio fans would still consider Lazio to have been the better team because that’s the only game they bother about. That’s how bad it is.

“Last season was a special one for Steven Gerrard but now he needs to stop nine in a row. When we were trying to do the nine, we had something like 17 or 18 internationals in the squad. At training we used to have the Scots against the foreigners and I was never kicked so much in my life.

“It was a big thing for us but the only person who was really confident we could do nine in a row was Jimmy Bell, the kitman. He had the t-shirts printed up before we’d even kicked off.

“What would I think if Celtic go on to get ten in a row? Well, it would be hard to take. I think Rangers would need to get Pep Guardiola’s money to go out and get the best players around to try to match it.”

Most of Gazza’s memories of his time in Scotland are so well rehearsed that he breezes through them. As much as he liked his time at Lazio - how he regularly tormented Football Italia’s James Richardson by pulling stunts as he did his pieces to camera - trying to prove his fitness to hardline Czech coach Zdenek Zeman following a fractured tibia and fibia was a pain. Going to Rangers was about getting a smile on his face again. It worked.

“When I played for England I used to take the piss out of Terry Butcher and Chris Woods because they were playing for Rangers and they told me not to knock it until I’d tried it,” said Gazza. “At one point during the World Cup in Italy I gave them so much stick that they battered me – they actually pinned me down and punched the living daylights out of me. To be fair, when I did try it I found out that they were right. Every game was like a cup final.

“I remember making my debut and losing the ball. I thought: ‘That’s all right, I’ll get it back in a minute’ and some old guy of about 70 shouted: ‘Get off your arse; you’re not on holiday now!’. So I ran and got it back again.”

You don’t have to condone everything which has gone on in Gascoigne’s life to root for this ultimate entertainer getting his existence in order again. “I’ve been training a little bit, feeling good,” he said. “I see Graeme Souness cycling down the sea front near me – cycling with his top off. If he was chocolate he’d eat himself.

“And I saw Harry Redknapp recently. He was sitting in the café, he had his head down and I went up behind him, put my hand on his head and gave him a shake. Turns out he was drinking a red-hot cup of coffee that ended up all over him. He went on TalkSport complaining about how I’d ruined his shirt. Then I went on TalkSport and told them I was at Primark, buying Harry another top. He wasn’t happy about that!”