There has been much written about Frank McAvennie, mostly surrounding his reputation away from the football field, but it should not be forgotten that he is celebrated at former clubs St Mirren, Celtic and West Ham as a dynamic striker with an unerring eye for goal.

McAvennie came to professional football relatively late at the age of 20 after playing for Junior side Johnstone Burgh and failing to earn a contract from a trial with Partick Thistle.

He blossomed at St Mirren, scoring 48 times in 135 appearances and claiming the PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year in 1982.

His form didn’t go unnoticed, and he signed for West Ham in June 1985 for a sizeable fee. It is perhaps at Upton Park and of course Celtic Park that he is most fondly remembered, and where he says had the best times of his career.

McAvennie had two spells at both the Hammers and his boyhood heroes, coming agonisingly close to winning the English top-flight in a season where he outscored the best strikers that the country had to offer, and he was a star of the side as Celtic claimed the league championship title and Scottish Cup in their Centenary year in 1988.

The prolific frontman also scored on his international debut for Scotland in the World Cup play-off victory over Australia in 1985, and made two substitute appearances at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986. It is remarkable then that he only went on to win 5 caps in total.

Here, he talks us through some of the high-points and low-points of his extraordinary career, right back to the days when he was starring for St Augustine’s Primary in Coatbridge!

WHAT WAS THE FIRST MEDAL YOU WON?

MY first medal was at primary school! I played in the school team for St Augustine’s and we won the league and the cup. I never played football after that in a proper team until I went professional really!

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEDAL?

BOTH of the medals in the centenary year were special, because I was a Celtic supporter and I knew what it meant to the club and to the players and the fans. It was such a special feeling to get those medals in that particular year, it’s something I’ll never forget.

ANY MISSING FROM YOUR COLLECTION?

THERE were a few that got away! At St Mirren we got to a couple of semi-finals and I would have like to have got them to a final and won something, but it wasn’t to be.

When I was at West Ham the old First Division got away from us, and it was heartbreaking. That was the big one that got away in the year that I was the league top scorer.

WHAT ONE DO FANS ASK YOU ABOUT THE MOST?

FUNNILY enough it’s not any of the medals I won so much, but that year at West Ham when we just lost out on claiming the title.

It went to the last game of the season, and if we had won at Stamford Bridge and Liverpool had drawn then that was it, we would have been champions. Our game was on the Monday, and Liverpool won on the Saturday, so that was it. We didn’t even want to play our game on the Monday.

It was so close, and they’ve never been that close since. We should have won it, and it was the weather that beat us really rather than anyone else because we never played for six weeks.

We had to play Saturday, Monday and Wednesday for about five week, can you imagine players nowadays having to cope with that? They would be saying ‘oh my God, I can’t play!’

I think that’s what beat us more than anything, but such is life.

WHERE AR THEY NOW?

MY medals are in Celtic Park at the museum. I was going to get rid of them many, many years ago and I thought that if I don’t give them to somebody associated with the club then I’ll just end up selling them.

I ended up giving them to the Celtic museum, and that was great.

I don’t go by to see them at all, the medals are for everyone else to see really. I’ve got the memories.