Scott McGarvey Profile

Scott Tho­mas McGar­vey, born Glas­gow, Scot­land, April 22, 1963. Nev­er afraid of pro­vok­ing con­tro­versy, Scott McGarvey´s pro­fes­sion­al life was dom­in­ated by end­less rows wi­th club man­agers, and as a dir­ect res­ult, the out­spoken play­er went on to ap­pear for a string of dif­fer­ent te­ams in his act­ive days, in­clud­ing Man­chester Uni­ted, Wolver­hampton Wan­derers, Carl­isle Uni­ted, and Old­ham Athletic.

Scott McGar­vey joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted as an ap­pren­tice in 1979 and sig­ned pro­fes­sion­al terms wi­th The Reds the fol­low­ing year. A tal­en­ted for­ward, he was giv­en his Foot­ball Lea­gue de­but for Uni­ted by Dave Sex­ton when he took the field as a sub­sti­tute for fel­low coun­try­man Lou Ma­cari in a 5-0 win over Fir­st Di­vi­sion new­ly pro­moted Lei­cester City at Old Traf­ford on the 13th of Septem­ber 1980. The stri­ker re­cor­ded his fir­st top-flight goal for Man­chester Uni­ted in a 2-0 vic­tory over Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at Old Traf­ford on the 17th of April 1982, and fol­lowed up by scor­ing the win­ner in a 1-0 Di­vi­sion One tri­umph at ho­me ag­ainst South­ampton two weeks la­ter. The Glaswe­gi­an also sco­red the win­ning goal in a 2-1 Fir­st Di­vi­sion vic­tory over West Ham Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford on the 22nd of Mar­ch 1983, but he con­tin­ued to struggle for a reg­u­lar spot in the Uni­ted start­ing el­ev­en and he ac­cu­mu­lated a mere sev­en fir­st te­am out­ings for the club dur­ing the 1982-83 cam­paign. As a Man­chester Uni­ted play­er, he was shipped out on loan to re­leg­a­tion can­did­ates Wolver­hampton Wan­derers in the sec­ond pe­riod of the 1983-84 term in or­der to ac­quire some more fir­st te­am ex­per­i­ence, and racked up thir­teen Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for The Old Gold and Black un­til he re­turned to Old Traf­ford. Fail­ing to live up to the ex­pect­a­tions, McGar­vey on­ly ma­naged to play in 25 Di­vi­sion One mat­ches for Uni­ted be­fore was dis­patched to Sec­ond Di­vi­sion te­am Ports­mouth for a fee of £85,000 in the sum­mer of 1984.

Dur­ing Scott McGarvey´s fir­st year at Ports­mouth, Ox­ford Uni­ted won pro­mo­tion to the Fir­st Di­vi­sion along wi­th run­ners-up Birm­ing­ham City and third pla­ced Man­chester City, whi­le the So­uth Coast­ers were pipped at the post on goal dif­fer­ence. The fol­low­ing sea­son Ports­mouth just missed out on pro­mo­tion once ag­ain, fin­ish­ing be­hind Dave Bassett´s Wim­bledon by three points. Un­for­tu­nately, the way­ward play­er did not ful­fil his ob­vi­ous po­ten­tial whi­le wi­th Ports­mouth, and he amassed on­ly 23 Lea­gue Di­vi­sion Two ap­pear­ances for Pom­pey un­der for­mer Phil­adelphia Fury and Black­pool man­ager Alan Ball dur­ing his two sea­sons at Frat­ton Park. Fol­low­ing a short loan spell at Carl­isle Uni­ted in 1986, he sig­ned a per­man­ent deal wi­th The Cum­bri­ans for whom he hit eight­een goals in 55 fir­st te­am ga­mes un­der Brunton Park boss Harry Gregg be­fore he joi­ned for­ces wi­th Sec­ond Di­vi­sion out­fit Grimsby To­wn at the back end of the 1986-87 cam­paign. Af­ter scor­ing four­teen goals dur­ing 65 Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Mar­iners, he de­cided to make a move to Bris­tol City where he con­trib­uted four­teen goals dur­ing 33 Third Di­vi­sion mat­ches for the Ashton Gate te­am. He then went on to play for Old­ham Ath­let­ic, Wi­gan Ath­let­ic, Derry City, Wit­ton Al­bion, Mazda, and fi­nally Greek Cyp­ri­ot si­de Ar­is Li­mas­sol where he fin­ished off his play­ing days in 1993. Very few play­ers in the his­tory of the ga­me have shown them­selves cap­able of start­ing at the top, and ac­tu­ally stay­ing there. Alas, the over­con­fid­ent Scott McGar­vey star­ted his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer at the wrong end of the scale. Scott McGar­vey Play­ing Ca­reer: Man­chester Uni­ted, Wolver­hampton Wan­derers, Ports­mouth, Carl­isle Uni­ted, Grimsby To­wn, Bris­tol City, Old­ham Ath­let­ic, Wi­gan Ath­let­ic, Derry City, Wit­ton Al­bion, Mazda, Ar­is Li­mas­sol. Play­ing Hon­ours: None.

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