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Fullname: Francis McAvennie
aka: Macca, Frank McAvennie
Born: 22 Nov 1959
Birthplace: Glasgow
Position: Striker
International: Scotland
International Games: 5 games
International Goals: 1 goal

Biog

Striker Frank McAvennie was unquestionably one of the most popular and colourful "characters" to pull on the Hoops in the 80s, but probably will be remembered more for being one of our most controversial (in comical ways as well!)

With his bleached blonde hair, designer clothes, page 3 model wife, seemingly unquenchable love of champagne, the "burdz" and the highlife, McAvennie was the epitome of the clichéd 80s playboy footballer, as renowned for his scoring off the field as on it. But for all his off-field antics the man known to Celtic fans as ‘Macca’ will always be fondly remembered by the Bhoys support as a wonderful and blessed footballer.

McAvennie possessed a great awareness of space and an exquisite touch. Despite his love of partying the Glasgow-born forward was always prepared to put in a shift on the football pitch.

A lifelong Celtic fan, McAvennie grew up in Milton and started his professional career at St.Mirren where his performances caught the eye of scouts from both north and south of the border. West Ham United won the race to take the striker away from Love Street and it soon became obvious that the Hammers had struck gold as McAvennie forged a forward partnership with Tony Cottee that terrorised defences in the English top flight.

The goalscoring exploits of the duo saw the Hammers make a serious challenge for the league title in 1986 but in the end the Londoners fell just short of the championship, finishing third behind Liverpool and Everton.

In truth the Upton Park side never came close to reaching those heights the following year but Cottee and McAvennie continued to have their admirers. Now a Scotland international McAvennie was a major star on and off the field, even making an appearance as a guest on Terry Wogan’s primetime BBC 1 chat show. The capture of McAvennie in October 1987 for £750,000 was then quite a coup for Celtic manager Billy McNeill. He made his debut in the 1-1 draw against Hibs at Celtic Park on 3 Oct 1987.

Although Macca had not quite maintained the sensational form of season 85/86 he remained a high profile and sought after asset. His debut season for the Bhoys was the stuff of dreams. Spearheading a revitalised Celtic team Macca formed a prolific partnership with Andy Walker. Frank’s touch and vision combined with Walkers clinical finishing provided the perfect foil for the midfield artistry of Paul McStay as Celtic won a wonderful and eternally memorable league and Scottish Cup in their Centenary season.

McAvennie’s contribution to that success was significant and stylish. On January 1 1988 he welcomed in the New Year with a delectable double against bitter rivals and reigning champions Rangers, his goals giving the Bhoys a well deserved 2-0 victory.

That game had been Frank’s second Old Firm clash as a player. The first – at Ibrox on October 17 - was also memorable for Macca, but for very different reasons. Just weeks after arriving back home in Scotland Frank found himself at the centre of one of the most controversial incidents in Scottish football history. During a typically frantic derby tussle McAvennie and Rangers keeper Chris Woods squared up to each other after a clash in the box. A melee ensued with players shoving each other and Frank was grabbed by the throat as Woods and Rangers skipper Butcher set about the Celtic man. All three were red-carded during the 2-2 game and the trio - along with Ibrox-based Englishman Graham Roberts – became embroiled in an unprecedented court case where they had to answer charges of "behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace". This remarkable piece of legal action resulted in McAvennie and Roberts escaping without punishment but Woods and Butcher were fined for their aggressive actions.

Back on the pitch Celtic swept to the championship in style before McAvennie capped off the season with a typically show stealing performance in the Scottish Cup final against Dundee United. With Celtic trailing United 1-0 Macca pounced twice in the last 15 minutes – the winner coming just seconds from the end - to snatch a dramatic but just victory at a sunbathed Hampden Park.

The sunshine turned to rain the next season (88/89) though as Celtic’s form slumped. Macca was missing the bright lights of London but on the pitch he still showed his quality on a regular basis and had netted 17 times by March. However, the fallout of that incident at Ibrox and the intensity of attention that comes with being a high profile footballer in Glasgow meant that Frank was getting itchy feet. Add to that the fact that Celtic were said to owe him money from when he first signed, then a parting of the ways seemed inevitable.

Macca had tasted the bright lights of the party life in London and was addicted to it, with then Celtic manager (Billy McNeill) stating that the first thing out of Celtic Park on a Saturday was McAvennie to get his flight to London for Saturday night life. Add in that he was at this point spending more than he was earning and it was inevitable that things were just not going to be sustainable. So just 17 months after becoming a Bhoy, the profligate Frank McAvennie returned to West Ham in a reported £1.5m deal. A sad loss for the support who had idolised him since he had come back to the club and it was many a year before we got another striker of his ability at his peak again.

But that wasn’t the last the Hoops support were to see of Frankie Bhoy. By 1992 Frank was a free agent. His return to London had been a disaster. The Hammers were relegated and Frank suffered a broken leg.

The glory days of the past were now distant memories and he was set to return to Glasgow to play for Partick Thistle!

It was an embarrassing transfer saga that saw Macca wave the Partick Thistle above his head for a photo shoot, before Celtic manager Liam Brady for some reason npped in to secure his signature. It was quite poor and reflected badly on Brady especially when denied knowing that Frank was going to sign for Partick Thistle.

The returning Frank was a shadow of his former self but in fairness he was probably in better shape than the rudderless and virtually penniless Celtic he had rejoined. Their was to be no fairytale end to McAvennie’s Celtic career which ended without a lining of silverware.

Following his retirement from football McAvennie retained a high media profile in Scotland as he continued to live up to his reputation. But life turned sour for Frank as he became addicted to cocaine and he began to have regular brushes with the law. In 1996 he was found guilty of being in possession of cocaine, and in that same year he was declared bankrupt. In 1999 he was found guilty of drink driving.

Frank’s playboy persona has been memorably parodied in the TV football sketch show ‘Only An Excuse’ by Jonathan Watson who gave Macca the now (in)famous ‘Where’s the burdz?’ catchphrase.

Whatever people think of McAvennie’s lifestyle he remains generally a well liked figure among many in the Celtic support (for various reasons). What cannot be disputed is the fact that on the football field he was a very genuine talent who in that glorious Centenary season made dreams come true. Off the field is a different thing all together.

Playing Career

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Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1981-1985	St. Mirren	135 (48)
1985-1987	West Ham United	85 (33)
1987-1989	Celtic	55 (27)
1989-1992	West Ham United	68 (16)
1992-1993	Aston Villa	3 0(0)
1993-1994	Celtic	30 (10)
1994→	Swindon Town (loan)	7 0(0)
1994-?	Falkirk	__________
?	St. Mirren

Quotes

"There's as much chance of [Frank] McAvennie moving as there is of Rangers beating us 5-1 tomorrow."
Billy McNeil, Celtic (Manager) commenting of reports that Macca was heading back to London.
We did lose 5-1 the next day, and Macca left soon after!

"When I put the second one in, the whole stadium erupted and the crowd began singing "Happy Birthday Dear Celtic". Anyone who didn't know it was a special year, they would know then. It was all as if it was meant."
Frank McAvennie on the 2-0 victory v Rangers Jan 1988 (match)

Pictures

• Frank McAvennie Pics

Biography

Scoring: An Expert's Guide [Illustrated] (Hardcover)
by Ray Winstone (Author), Frank McAvennie (Author), Reg McKay (Author)

• Hardcover: 259 pages
• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; illustrated edition edition (26 Aug 2003)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 1841954284
• ISBN-13: 978-1841954288
• Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.4 x 3 cm

Synopsis

"Frank McAvennie knows all about scoring - goals, women, drugs. He's an expert. A cult figure on the streets of Glasgow and London, the original and lasting lads' hero footballer, McAvennie's life is peppered with sporting highs, beautiful women, outrageous acts, the company of stars, court appearances and imprisonment for drug dealing. This book is not just about sports, crime, drugs, sex or kiss and tell - it is all that and more. This is Frank McAvennie's story - and of those he has known, told candidly for the first time. Find out how he came to be interviewed in connection with the murder of two women. Boozing with Tony Adams in backroom bars. The bevy of Page Three beauties.

"The real reason he was only to win five caps for Scotland. Being smuggled through immigration without a passport. How on two separate occasions he had the chance to become the first Roman Catholic to be signed by Rangers. Partying with Elton John and Rod Stewart. His time in Tokyo and his return to Europe with the Japanese police on his tail and how he is still wanted for several offences in the Far East. The cocaine years. His imprisonment in Durham jail. The kissing and telling.

"Here, for the first time, is the true story of one of the game's most popular rascals. "

Review

Released his biography 2003, aptly titled "Scoring: An Expert's Guide" but he wasn't meaning goals (if you know what I mean). Less and less about football in many ways, and more and more about his cheeky chappy life (esp the sexual exploits).

You couldn't make up much of what he tells you but it's practically all true. Entertaining if nothing else.

Typical Macca Stories

1)Interviewer: But surely you get "bother" in Glasgow from Rangers fans...
Macca: No, they're no problem at all. I'm always treated brilliantly in Glasgow. In fact I was out in a bar up there with a Page 3 girl this one time; short skirt and boobs, the usual. Anyway, this fight broke out and there was beer and glass going everywhere. Frankie Miller, the [Scottish R&B] singer, was with us, but instead of protecting the girl, he dived on top of me to make sure I didn't get hurt! She wasn't best-pleased [chuckles].

2)Treasure Hunt!
This doesn't refer to the old 1980's program on Channel 4 (although it wouldn't be past Macca to have tried to get on this show to get close to Anneka Rice's arse), but refers to his continued charmed life. One day Frank was en route to Holland, when he was stopped and found to have £100k in a bag in the back of his car alongside drugs. The bag with the money was confiscated as being potentially drug money (as were the drugs of course), and Macca you'd think was in dire straits.

So what was McAvennie's reasoning for the large amount of money in the bag? He claimed that the money was for financing a Treasure Hunt for some sunken ship in the English Channel! Of all the daft stories ever concocted that is right up with them, but he is adamant its the truth (as he would in this situation). At least it makes you laugh and smile if nothing else.

As per usual, he got away with it all again! Don't know what to say about this guy at all! He leads a very charmed life.

3) McAvennie & Monday Mornings (taken from "Celtic Underground" 2010)
Frank McAvennie to his audience at a sportsman's dinner:“The gaffer (Big Billy) was brilliant to me when I first moved to Celtic. He knew how much I loved the club but understood the life I had in London was a brilliant one for a daft boy from the Milton. We’d agreed that I could fly down to London straight after Saturday’s match and get the early bird flight back to Glasgow on Monday morning.
"After a few weeks the gaffer started getting pissed aff with me as I was always late for Monday training mainly because when my 7am flight from Heathrow was leaving I was also just departing Stringfellows! The fines were eating into my wages big time so as I was telling my story to a mate back in Glasgow who told me he knew of someone who worked for Radio Clyde who could help me out on a Monday morning and it was only half the cost of my fine. Just you be there at the usual time on Monday morning and I’ll make sure my contact gets you to Barrowfield in time for training says the mate.
"There I am worse for wear on the Monday at Glasgow airport feeling rough after another all-nighter. As I stumble into arrivals this guys comes up to me and goes Frank I’m here to get you to Barrowfield on time for training. I’m looking at my watch and thinking to myself who is he Nigel fcken Mansell as training starts in 15 mins. No matter I goes with it but rather than leave the main exit he takes me through another door within the airport.
"I’m thinking what’s going on here but two minutes later we walk outside and turn the corner and there it is, a f**en helicopter! The pilot says strap yourself in we’ll be there in ten minutes and no kidding ten minutes later the Bhoys are doing their warm up at Barrowfield and look up only to see this helicopter landing on the middle of the pitch. They are all thinking what the f**k and they see me popping my head out the door. Everybody is lying about the pitch laughing their faces off and give the gaffer his due he’s pishing himself laughing as well. Just as I’m leaving the chopper I says to the pilot cheers mate thanks for your help oh and by the way whit’s your name. George says the pilot, Captain George from Radio Clyde eye in the sky!"

Scoring at the wrong time

A voracious appetite for birds, booze and drugs rarely complements a fruitful footballing career but Frank McAvennie, a striker who once scored goals as freely as he partied, made a genuine effort to marry the two.

From roadsweeper to the World Cup is quite a journey for a man who came to the game late. Though the Scotsman's footballing achievements have long been overshadowed by brushes with the law, admissions of Class A drug use and headline-making dalliance with glamour models.

His star may have shone brightly at times but McAvennie's is a classic tale of diminishing returns, rather like the cocaine he regularly shoved up his nose. Saturday 22 November will see the former St Mirren (twice), West Ham (twice), Celtic (twice), Aston Villa (briefly), Swindon (briefly) and Falkirk (even more briefly) player hit his 49th birthday. At one point that may have seemed an unlikely milestone for him to reach. Yet he's still alive and he's still causing trouble.

At the three clubs he revisited during his helter skelter career, he is remembered for a fantastic first spell and a second stint that failed to reignite the old magic. At St Mirren he was something of a late developer, only making the breakthrough to the Paisley club's first team at 21 after abandoning his previous occupation as a streetcleaner and the amateur football in which he honed his skills. In his first full season he earned the Scottish Young Player of the Year award. At the twilight of his career, he returned to Love Street for a brief but fruitless spell.West Ham fans will never forget the season of 1985-86 and he was the name on everyone's lips that season, where the Hammers achieved their best league position in a 113-year history.

McAvennie scored 26 goals while part of a wonderful partnership with Tony Cottee. Yet the season he came back to East London - 1988-89 - the Irons were relegated. It was during this latter period that his love affair with the mirror and the razor blade developed. Celtic was the team McAvennie had supported since childhood and he achieved every Bhoys' dream when he scored the goals to secure a league and cup double in the club's centenary year - 1988. McAvennie maintains this was the proudest moment of his career. His return, at 34, saw him fail to match previous Parkhead heights as the Hoops languished in the doldrums.

Like pal and fellow Scot Charlie Nicholas, McAvennie's move south saw him exposed to a world of glamour models and flowing champagne. Yet at first, the bright lights seemed to inspire the man at West Ham, in contrast to Nicholas' poor start at Arsenal. Signed for £340,000 in the summer of 1985, McAvennie's pace and goalscoring exploits soon saw him hit the headlines.

By Christmas 1985 he led the First Division goalscoring charts. Yet he was not quite as famous as he might have been. A TV blackout after a contractual dispute saw no league football shown live or even as highlights for the first half of the season. It was not until the Third Round of the FA Cup, a late win at Charlton Athletic, that an English TV audience even saw McAvennie's fashionably flowing blonde highlighted mullet in action. ITV's Saturday lunchtime Saint and Greavsie proved McAvennie's anonymity among the general public by introducing him to pedestrians wandering through London's West End.

Very few recognised him. By the time the cameras were switched on in early 1986 perhaps McAvennie's best had already been and gone, though he continued to support Cottee's own scoring exploits. West Ham went into the last weeks of the season with a genuine chance of the title only to fall four points short of champions Liverpool. Everton beat the Hammers to second too. Meanwhile, McAvennie narrowly lost out to Toffees striker Gary Lineker in the scoring charts, which the Scot put down to the England man's taking of penalties. Lineker's ability to escape the tabloid glare when McAvennie was hitting the headlines for reasons outside football was long a bugbear too. Those West Ham goals soon won him a call-up for his country. Alex Ferguson - as was - was interim boss of Scotland after the death of Jock Stein and McAvennie was taken to the Mexico World Cup after scoring in Scotland's play-off win over Australia.

It was always likely to happen... McAvennie fell foul of the disciplinarian's discipline. Barricading Ferguson and assistant Walter Smith into their rooms so that he and Nicholas could head out for a 'bevvy' when the team were altitude training in Santa Fe was hardly likely to secure selection and McAvennie was only used a substitute during another failed Scots campaign.

The dream move to Celtic in the summer of 1987 followed a goalshy second season at West Ham, where a burgeoning relationship with 'Page 3' girl Jenny Blyth took his mind off the football but kept him in the headlines. As at Upton Park, success on the pitch swiftly arrived at his new club. The proud Celt secured his place in the Parkhead pantheon by scoring two late goals in the Scottish Cup Final but there were already problems. McAvennie was commuting to London and back while playing in Glasgow to spend time with his busty lovely. Agent Bill McMurdo - who also represented George Best at the time - told how his charge was spending £4,000 a week while earning just £3,000.

The Bhoys were unable to pay him the cash he needed, his time at Celtic was soon over and West Ham were able to lure him back before the end of the 1988-89 season. Arsenal, going for the league title, had been sniffing around but McAvennie chose to go for the devil he knew. It was the wrong decision; the Hammers were relegated at the end of the season.
Lou Macari replaced the sacked John Lyall as Hammers boss and the relationship between manager and star striker was never remotely cordial. Further disaster struck when McAvennie suffered a broken leg at the beginning of the next season, which he missed almost totally. Not only that, a £400,000 purchase of an Essex mansion proved to be at just the wrong time. The housing market crashed and the house, shared with Blyth, was repossessed within a year of purchase.

It was during that long injury lay-off that his use of cocaine began. And, as he eventually admitted, continued once he was back playing. He eventually departed Upton Park for Aston Villa after scoring a hat-trick on his last game for the Hammers in May 1992. It was too late, as they had again been relegated.

At Villa, Ron Atkinson was able to use him just three times before a return to Parkhead, where he again found himself at a club in crisis amid Rangers' nine league titles in a row. And in came Lou Macari as manager... brief periods at Swindon, Falkirk, back at St Mirren and out in Hong Kong followed.

A brief period in America signalled the end of his football career but not his time in the tabloids. A split from Blyth, a failed marriage and being twice being arrested for possession of cocaine all made the red tops over the years. In 1994 he rocked British football by admitting his use of the drugs and confessed to blowing £700,000 on the repossessed house, booze and drugs.

Worse nearly followed when customs officers in Dover found £100,000 of McAvennie's money wrapped like a wedding present alongside cannabis and methadone. The money was confiscated, making him instantly bankrupt, and he faced a long term in jail for charges relating to drug-dealing.

After a long wait, a court in 2000 agreed with McAvennie's claim that the money had been meant for a hunt for treasure buried beneath the sea in a shipwreck. Now resident in Newcastle, the man who had been earning £5,000 a week in his latter West Ham days was penniless and jobless, being supported by a younger new wife.

In the years since, with the old "devil's dandruff" now long forsworn, McAvennie is able to carve something of a living as an after-dinner speaker and match-day host at West Ham and Celtic, living off tales from his colourful career. A tell-all confessional autobiography was knowingly called Scoring: An Expert's Guide.

Yet trouble continues to follow him. A brawl the night before a charity match on the Isle of Man saw him charged with affray and disorderly conduct in July 2008. A boozy binge with fellow hellraiser Andy Goram had gone badly wrong and McAvennie faces a court date in January 2009.

"Bad boy Frank McAvennie in pub fight" said the Daily Mirror headline. At 49, he might enjoy being given such a youthful label yet the continued controversy and brushes with the law show he may not yet have learned the lessons of a career that should have delivered far more.