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Revision as of 00:53, 21 March 2006 by 216.194.4.210 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Frank McAvennie (born 25 November, 1959 in Lanark) is a former Scottish football striker.
McAvennie lived a nightclub life involving drink, drugs and women. However. his talent was always evident. It was St Mirren who gave him his chance in football. He had been playing Scottish junior football until the club had spotted him.
Good form saw him sign for West Ham United F.C. in 1985 and McAvennie enjoyed a largely proflic season where he scored 26 goals, one behind Gary Lineker in the English Football League.
McAvennie was called into the Scottish squad in December 1985 for the World Cup play off with Australia. McAvennie scored on his debut when he came on as a second half substitute by lobbing the ball from 30 yards, with the goalie stranded in no man's land, in a 2-0 win.
He was called up to the Scotland national team for the
, under Alex Ferguson. In October 1987, he moved back to Scotland with Celtic F.C., for £750,000, helping them do the double, winning the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Cup.
McAvennie returned to West Ham United the following season in a £1.2m deal. According to Billy McNeill's autobiography, McAvennie wanted to return to London and his model girlfriend Jenny Blyth. McAvennie claims in his autobiography that Celtic were refusing to pay him a signing fee.
In any event this second spell in London was not as successful and McAvennie's career never really got going again.
In 1992, he moved to Aston Villa F.C. for a short stay before moving back to Celtic. He had a loan spell at Swindon Town F.C. before retiring.
More recently, he is parodied regularly on the BBC's football comedy programme Only An Excuse with such catchphrases as "where's the burds?" - the character became so popular that there was a short lived spin-off entitled I, Macca.
Frank also has a place on the Saturday morning football show, Soccer AM - where the car park is named after him. This was as a result of him hitting the Russian substitue warming up in the face on a volley. Since that day, it has been known as the Frank McAvennie Car Park.
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