I SUPPOSE as numbers go it s a fairly cushy one.
Travelling round the world first-class with Oasis, partaking freely of their backstage riders and 12 months later getting a wad of cash for scribbling the gory details down in a book. That s the lot of Paolo Hewitt, the former NME freelancer whose Gallagher road odyssey Getting High, fully deserves to rub dust-jackets with the likes of Hammer Of The Gods and Heroes And Villains.
I m obviously here with the band s say-so but that doesn t mean they censor what I write, Hewitt insists, prickly to the suggestion that he s Oasis literary lap-dog. There have to be times when you go off the record for this sort of thing to work but I m not their publicist. If it happens, it goes in. End of story.
To be honest, there s very little I ve witnessed that they haven t talked about openly in interviews. My job, I suppose, is to put the drugs and the fights and all the other stuff that goes on into context. Oasis do well out of the fly-on-the-wall approach because no matter how daft the behaviour, you always sense they re 100% into what they re doing. Even when Noel and Liam perform their I m going to fooking quit routine, it s because they care passionately about the music. They don t want to be anything less than the best band in the world which is what they are at the moment.
For all the talk of Liam wanting to chin Paul McCartney because he slagged Be Here Now and Noel searching out Nick Kent to discuss his recent Mojo article, Hewitt reckons that Oasis are pretty much impervious to criticism.
A couple of years ago, yeah, I reckon Macca and Nick Kent would ve been well-advised to go into hiding but they re so focused on the music now that they take it in their stride. The NME doesn t like your latest record, big deal, because two million other people do.
The weeklies are in love with The Verve at the moment, he continues, but give it a year and Richard Ashcroft s name will be mud. To tell you the truth, I m glad to be out of it. It was a laugh at first but having to be negative about someone because they re a Melody Maker band soon gets boring.
As a Spurs supporter, Hewitt has every right to hate the beautiful game but despite Alan Sugar s best efforts I just wish he d go back to selling computers the thirtysomething hack is still addicted to his lukewarm half-time cup of Bovril. This simpering fandom has manifested itself in The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw, the story of 70s |ber-maverick Robin Friday which he s co-authored with Paul Guigsy McGuigan.
The other lads in Oasis call him Mr Ceefax because wherever he is in the world, Guigsy s always checking up on scores and the latest transfer news. If he ever gets tired of music, he could get himself a job as a sports reporter, no problem.
Also championed by Super Furry Animals on their single The Man Don t Give A Fuck , Friday was George Best, Stan Bowles and Frank Worthington all rolled into one a supremely talented striker who was idolised at Reading and Cardiff but never escaped the lower divisions due to his insatiable appetite for wine, women and class A substances.
I always thought footballers were great athletes who never drank or took drugs, but then you had Charlie Nicholas confessing to being pissed in the tunnel at Highbury. One of the people we talked to about Robin was Eamon Dunphy who was with him at Reading during their 75/ 76 promotion season. Travelling to away matches they d be at the back of the coach smoking spliffs while everyone else was playing cards.
After a brief spell at Ninian Park, Friday went non-league and then quit the game for good when his recreational habits became all-consuming. Ravaged by years of abuse, his liver finally gave out in December 1990 the man who could have been King of the Kop or Darling of the North Bank dying penniless and a virtual recluse.
The amazing thing is that 20 years after the fact, people still remember him, Hewitt reflects. We were on the tear one night in Cardiff and these guys started getting a little testy, y know, weighing us up. Guigsy asks them if they ve ever heard of Robin Friday and the next thing we know it s beers all round as they launch into tales of him nutmegging the opposition full-back and finding the net with a 35-yard left-foot screamer. That s the sort of impression he made.
Hewitt s own concession to 70s footballing waywardness was burgling the dressing-rooms at then Southern League Woking.
Me and two mates managed to get in there one night while they were training and nicked some money, he confesses. Actually, I probably saw Robin Friday play cos he was with Hayes at the time who were Woking s big rivals. Guigsy s mad jealous about that!
The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw is published by Mainstream, priced UK#9.99.