Francis McAvennie (born 22 November 1959) is a Scottish former footballer, who played as a striker for St Mirren, West Ham United and Celtic, having had two spells with each of these clubs.

His strong form in Scotland attracted attention from south of the border and McAvennie had talks with Luton Town and their manager, David Pleat, in the summer of 1985.

[8] With St Mirren then agreeing a fee with West Ham United, McAvennie met with their manager John Lyall and his staff at Toddington services on the M1 motorway,[9] and he signed for them in June 1985 for £340,000.

[10] Originally signed as an attacking midfielder he was played as an out-and-out striker after an injury to Paul Goddard in the opening game of the season.

[13][19] McAvennie played eight games for the Hammers at the start of 1987–88, failing to score, before he moved to Celtic for a then club record fee of £750,000 on 2 October 1987.

[20] Graeme Souness had approached him to join rivals Rangers at the 1986 FIFA World Cup which would have made him the first high-profile Catholic player to play for the Protestant club, but he refused, being a supporter of Celtic.

McAvennie made a slow start at Celtic and his progress was not helped when he got involved in an on-field fracas with Chris Woods, Terry Butcher and Graham Roberts in an Old Firm game in November 1987.

[20] After a public row with manager Billy McNeill over being dropped for a league match at Tynecastle in March 1989 against Hearts,[26] Celtic relented to McAvennie's repeated requests for a transfer[27] and sold him back to West Ham.

[29] According to Celtic manager Billy McNeill's autobiography, McAvennie wanted to return to London and his model girlfriend Jenny Blyth.

Just before his return to Boleyn Ground, Celtic had accepted an offer from title chasing Arsenal, whose manager George Graham was looking for a proven goalscorer to partner Alan Smith.

Now playing in the Second Division, things got worse for both McAvennie and West Ham when the striker suffered a broken leg on the opening game of the season on 19 August 1989, following a challenge by Stoke City's Chris Kamara, which put him out until March 1990.

McAvennie recalls in his autobiography, Scoring, An Expert's Guide, that Kamara had "come straight through him, crumpling him to the ground" and had then stood over him saying "Get up you Scottish bastard, this is a man's game".

[33][34][35] Out injured, on pain-killers and with spare-time on his hands McAvennie visited London's nightclubs to take his mind off his injuries and the boredom of not playing football.

[13] On 2 May 1992, he signed off in style at West Ham, scoring a hat-trick in his final match against Nottingham Forest having come on as a substitute for Mitchell Thomas.

[45][46] He scored nine goals in 19 league games that season,[41] though Celtic could only manage a third-place finish as Rangers secured their fifth successive title.

A highlight of his spell at the County Ground came on 19 March 1994 when he helped the Robins hold league leaders (and eventual double winners) Manchester United to a 2–2 draw.

In a professional career which had stretched for 15 years, he managed a total of 136 goals in the English and Scottish leagues, combined with many more in the cups and also in Europe for Celtic.

McAvennie was called into the Scotland national team late 1985 for the World Cup qualifying play-off with Australia at Hampden Park on 20 November.

[49][50][15] In the return leg in Melbourne on 4 December 1985, which was McAvennie's 2nd international appearance, the game finished 0-0 resulting in Scotland qualifying for the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

[51][52] Having travelled with Scotland to Australia he returned to the UK and only three days later scored the only goal for West Ham in a 1–0 win at Loftus Road against Queens Park Rangers.

[17][15][57] His lifestyle was the inspiration for a parody character played by Jonathan Watson in the Scottish comedy TV programme, Only an Excuse?

[15][58] In 2000, having been cleared in court of an incident involving the supply of controlled drugs,[15][59] McAvennie found himself in severe financial difficulties and resorted to selling his medals to Celtic-supporting businessman Willie Haughey for a small sum; these were later returned to him in 2017.