SENTINELCELTS

Morning,all.

It is a sad time for us as we remember the many happy days that Frank McGarvey gave us in just over five years at Celtic Park. The greater loss is felt,of course,by his family and friends who gathered together yesterday to mourn his passing and to celebrate his life.

Sentinel Celts,and all of our contributors,offer our heartfelt condolences. And our thanks. 

I hope that Graham Spiers doesn’t mind,but this is his obituary to a great Celt. 
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Frank McGarvey’s life was a compelling tapestry of highs and lows: football success on the pitch but then depression and addiction off it. “I’ve faced my battles,” he once noted stoically. In later years McGarvey, found solace in his faith and was a regular attender of Catholic Mass in Glasgow. Faith was the prism through which he came to understand his life.

He rose to become a celebrated footballer with St Mirren and Celtic, though there was a time when he thought he would never make it. “You’re too thin, too wiry,” one observer told the twig-like McGarvey when he was trying to break into the St Mirren team under a young, fiery Alex Ferguson in 1975. In some despair Ferguson sent the then 18-year-old on loan to the amateur club, Kilsyth Rangers, to toughen him up, and it did wonders for his development.

“I came back from that spell and Fergie threw me straight into a pre-season friendly with St Mirren,” McGarvey recalled. “The first moment I touched the ball I knew I had an edge. I felt stronger and was never out of the St Mirren team after that.” A mercurial career followed.

McGarvey would go on to play 341 games for St Mirren over two spells, scoring 102 goals, but the stint he is most remembered for are his five seasons with Celtic between 1980 and 1985 when the twisting, turning, ever-elusive McGarvey proved a nightmare for opposing defenders. The pinnacle of his career came with his crashing header that won Celtic the 1985 Scottish Cup over Dundee United with only minutes remaining.

Frank McGarvey was born in 1956 and brought up in Easterhouse, Glasgow. His father, Edward, was a local “sparky” while his mother, Mary, was a popular dinner lady at a local school. Frank was the third of four children, with two older brothers, Edward and Joseph, and a younger sister, Marie.

McGarvey was a man of many tastes — sport, music, reading, arguing — and he soon excelled at football. Having become such a prolific scorer at St Mirren, McGarvey inevitably was destined for greater things, and he came to the attention of Bob Paisley, the legendary manager of Liverpool, who signed him for £270,000 in May 1979. In Scottish football it was a colossal sum at the time. Paisley was building a peerless Liverpool team — at home and abroad — and McGarvey could not resist the challenge.

The move did not work out. While remaining free-scoring in Liverpool’s reserves, McGarvey could not budge outstanding strikers like Kenny Dalglish and David Johnson from the Liverpool starting XI. His wife, Pauline, was pregnant with their first child and McGarvey began to agitate for a return home. And he had no end of suitors back in Scottish football.

Ferguson, by now manager of Aberdeen and in the process of building a formidable team there, chipped away at McGarvey to rejoin him in Scotland’s northeast. Aberdeen offered McGarvey a better wage than Celtic in the early months of 1980. But the striker left Ferguson furious — a theme football would get used to — by going with his heart and joining Celtic for the same £270,000 fee that Liverpool had paid for him.

Off the field life was sweet for McGarvey. He was 21 when he married Pauline in 1978. They would go on to have four children before separating after 18 years together.

McGarvey loved golf and enjoyed reading. His favourite books were The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which he read voraciously, and also read to his children. His favourite rock band was Queen, whose hit-making years ran parallel with McGarvey’s own career. He also enjoyed chess.

McGarvey’s children all went on to have successful careers of their own. Paul McGarvey is a general-manager with David Lloyd fitness. Sean is an executive director of operations with Morgan Stanley. The third son, Scott, is head of technology operations with Tesco Bank, while a daughter, Jennifer, works with Virgin Media.

Silverware — two league titles, two Scottish Cups and one League Cup — beckoned at Celtic. The Parkhead legions adored him. “Frank was best described in Glasgow parlance as ‘gallus’,” recalled his manager, Billy McNeill. “I was never quite sure what Frank was going to do in a game, and I don’t think he was either, but he scored goals for fun. He played football off-the-cuff and became vital to Celtic. In his eyes, no cause was ever lost. He would run all day and had complete faith in his ability. He was great for morale.”

McGarvey was not without a sharp tongue and could make withering comments. More than once he complained, at the height of his Celtic powers, about the paltry pay he was taking home from the club each week: “about £190 after tax”. He once noted that Celtic had no proper gym facilities and recalled when “a group of players were doing sit-ups in the Celtic Park foyer when [chairman] Desmond White and a group of visiting businessmen came in and had to step over us on entering the stadium.”

In 1979 Jock Stein gave him his Scotland debut against Northern Ireland and he would go on to win seven caps, facing, among others, Argentina and Uruguay, though he did not score and his last cap came against Wales in 1984.

McGarvey with his daughter Jennifer at Parkhead last year after he had cancer diagnosed

McGarvey with his daughter Jennifer at Parkhead last year after he had cancer was diagnosed.

In May 1985 McGarvey’s crowning moment came with the header that won the Scottish Cup at Hampden Park. But imminent change was afoot. It would prove his last game for Celtic.

A pay dispute followed, in which McGarvey, then 29, claimed Celtic had made him an “insulting” offer. He promptly left Celtic to rejoin St Mirren, where he would go on to win the 1987 Scottish Cup. When he returned to Parkhead in St Mirren colours a few months later the Celtic fans chanted his name throughout the 90 minutes.

McGarvey would play for Queen of the South, where he was player-manager, and Clyde, with whom he won a second division title aged 37.

For years the pain lingered over his abrupt departure from Celtic, and McGarvey faced other battles in later life. A gambling addiction dogged him, which he spoke openly about in his autobiography Totally Frank. He admitted to squandering money, with which he was supposed to buy a property, on gambling. He lost his house and his marriage and ended up “in a dump of a rented flat with only a mattress for a bed”. There were thoughts of suicide.

But he gradually regained his life, joining Gamblers Anonymous, becoming a joiner and running his own business. Two of his sons, Sean and Scott, spoke on social media of how much love and respect his children retained for McGarvey through all the highs and lows. Contentment came and he became a regular worshipper at St Anthony’s RC Church.

McGarvey took up cycling and his most cherished holiday destination was Millport. Over decades he loved escaping to the island off Scotland’s west coast, where he was a member of Millport golf club. McGarvey’s hobbies included nature programmes — such as the Blue Planet series.

He is recalled at Celtic and St Mirren as one of each club’s most popular players. “Despite his small frame Frank McGarvey had the heart of a lion and was much loved by Celtic fans,” noted The Celtic Wiki. McGarvey is survived by his his partner Susan Lindsay, his former wife, four children and eight grandchildren.

Frank McGarvey was born on March 17, 1956. He died from pancreatic cancer on January 1, 2023, aged 66