Get it right this time and take Fivebellyz too!

ONCE he played in the great stadiums of Italy, strutted his stuff in World cup semi-finals and became Britain's most expensive player.

Now, he has snubbed the bright lights of Carshalton Athletic to play for the New Zealand team Football Kingz.

What is Paul Gascoigne playing at?

It's sad to see a player who is obviously blessed with more natural talent than most of us could ever dream of heading for a footbaling backwater in a bid to stay in the game.

It's like seeing Desert Orchid doing a point-to-point, but unfortunately the likes of Gascoigne need more than just hay and sympathy to continue a happy existence.

It would be nice to imagine Gascoigne chilling out and developing the skills required to pass on his undoubted skills to a younger generation, or take the game to new territory.

But, unfortunately, every time he gets on a plane to foreign parts , you fear he is going to make a prat out of himself and his sport.

Please Paul, just this time, let's get it right.

It's good to know that some people enjoy reading this column enough to get in touch with me about it.

Took one interesting call this week from a lady who disagreed strongly with my views on the BBC/ITV debate.

She argued - and she may well have a point - that the pundits can be discarded, but the commentators are ever present.

As such, she insisted, ITV's young guns were more than a match for their Beeb counterparts.

The thing is, I don't really notice commentators - at least unless they do something wrong.

In fact the only piece of commentary I can remember in the past 12 months is John Motson's 'just look at these scenes' when Robbie Keane equalised for Ireland against Germany, and I know for a fact that I wasn't listening to his commentary because I was in Dublin, watching the game on Irish telly!

More to the point, I remember that not because it was good, but because it was daft.

In fact, Motty lost it big style that morning/afternoon.

But I remain unconvinced that any of the commentators really excel.

Apart from the abysmal Jonathan Pearce, most of the men with the microphones do a fairly good job of letting the game speak for itself, rather than speaking for the sake of it.

And there isn't much more that you can ask for from a commentator.

But I can't ignore the pundits.

The build up and the half-time chitchat may well be an unnecessary part of the big match experience to some people, but, for me at least, it sets the scene nicely.

And Alan Hansen is preferable to Andy Townsend any day of the week!

Player of the season so far locally has to be Andy Whittaker.

City seem to have improved with every game, and that's hardly surprising when you've got a striker capable of scoring five goals in a game.

Wayne Curtis is continuing where he left off last season as well.

In fact the Morecambe striker looked a bit off the boil in a couple of the early games, but appears to have recaptured a bit of form since then.

It's a big season for Curtis, and if Morecambe are to reach the play-offs, he probably needs to score a good 20 goals.