George McKinley Cassidy McCluskey (born 19 September 1957) is a Scottish former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

, who played as a forward for Celtic,

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road ...

, Hibernian,

Hamilton Academical Hamilton Academical Football Club, often known as Hamilton Accies, or The Accies, is a Scottish football club from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire who currently compete in the Scottish Championship, having been relegated from the 2020–21 Scotti ...

, Kilmarnock and

Clyde Clyde may refer to: People * Clyde (given name) * Clyde (surname) Places For townships see also Clyde Township Australia * Clyde, New South Wales * Clyde, Victoria * Clyde River, New South Wales Canada * Clyde, Alberta * Clyde, Ontario, a tow ...

. He represented Scotland up to under-21 level. While with Celtic (his childhood and formative team and longest spell as a professional at eight seasons, otherwise spending two or three years at each club), he scored the winning goal in the

1980 Scottish Cup Final The 1980 Scottish Cup Final was played on 10 May 1980 at Hampden Park in Glasgow and was the final of the 95th Scottish Cup competition. Old Firm rivals Celtic and Rangers contested the match, which Celtic won 1–0 after extra time. Riotin ...

and won three Scottish League titles ( 1978–79, 1980–81 and 1981–82), scoring in the decisive last-day fixtures in 1979 and 1982 and finishing as top goalscorer in the latter season. In the autumn of his career in 1993, he helped Kilmarnock (managed by his Celtic teammate and friend Tommy Burns) gain promotion to the top tier from the First Division, where they remained for 28 years. McCluskey is now a coach at Celtic's

Youth Academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

Personal life

George McCluskey's son Barry is registered blind and is a

blind golf Disability golf classification is used for deaf golf, blind golf, amputee golf, golf for the mentally disabled, paraplegic golf and other forms of golf involving people with disabilities. Classifications Amputee golf Blind golf Blind golf is a ...

player. His younger brother, John, was also a footballer who played one match for Celtic in the early rounds of the European Cup in 1977 aged 16, becoming their youngest continental debutant (a record which stood for 42 years before being taken by Karamoko Dembélé in 2019) before being forced to retire soon afterwards due to a

thrombosis Thrombosis (from Ancient Greek "clotting") is the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. When a blood vessel (a vein or an artery) is injured, the body uses platelets (t ...

condition in his leg which endangered his health. It was also revealed some years later that John McCluskey had been one of the victims of the sexual abuse of child footballers which took place at

Celtic Boys Club St Patrick's Sports Academy is a youth football and sports club based in Motherwell, near Glasgow in Scotland. It operates football teams in age groups from under-9 to under-19. Formerly Celtic Boys Club, it helped more than 50 players towards p ...

(for which George also played) in the 1970s.Dark secret that took 30 years to expose: No more cover-ups: how the Record brought an end to the cancer that existed in Celtic Boys Club
''Daily Record'', 13 November 1998 (via

TheFreeLibrary ''The Free Dictionary'' is an American online dictionary and encyclopedia that aggregates information from various sources. Content The site cross-references the contents of ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', the ...

) The siblings are not related to

Pat McCluskey Patrick McCluskey (13 April 1952 – 24 August 2020) was a Scottish footballer. He spent most of his career in the Scottish League, except for part of one season in Ireland and one season in the United States. Career In 1970, McCluskey began h ...

who also played for Celtic in the 1970s.

References

Playing for the Hoops: The George McCluskey Story
Aidan Donaldson, 2016,

External links

*
McCluskey, George
at ''The Celtic Wiki'' {{DEFAULTSORT:McCluskey, George 1957 births Association football forwards Celtic F.C. players Clyde F.C. players Hamilton Academical F.C. players Hibernian F.C. players Thorniewood United F.C. players Kilmarnock F.C. players Leeds United F.C. players Living people Scotland under-21 international footballers Scottish Junior Football Association players Scottish Football League players Scottish footballers Footballers from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire English Football League players Scottish league football top scorers Scotland youth international footballers