Cascarino, Tony

Personal

Fullname: Anthony Guy Cascarino
aka: Tony Cascarino
Born: 1 September 1962
Birthplace: St Paul’s Cray, Kent (England)
Signed: 18 July 1991 from Aston Villa
Left: February 1992 to Chelsea (exchange for Tom Boyd)
Position: Forward, Inside-Forward
First game: Dundee United 4-3 away 10 August 1991 League
Last game: Montrose 6-0 home 25 January 1992 Scottish Cup
First goal: Hearts 3-1 home 5 October 1991 League
Last goal: Aberdeen 2-2 away 28 December 1991 League
Internationals: Ireland
International Caps: 88
International Goals: 19

Biog

Striker Tony Cascarino has to rank among the worst pound for pound signings in Celtic’s history [even without needing to adjust for transfer inflation over the years].

The former Millwall man was signed by the then recently appointed Bhoys boss Liam Brady for £1.1 million from Aston Villa in July 1991; Brady was formerly his agent and felt he knew him and what he could offer to the first team. At 6′ 2″ Cascarino was brought to add presence to the Hoops forward line but his record of 12 goals in 50 games for the Midlanders was far from impressive and didn’t bode well. It was to be far worse at Celtic.

He made his Celtic debut in a 4-3 victory at Dundee United on August 10th but failed to find the net during a goal fest of a game. Indeed the Celtic support had to wait until October 5th before they saw the London-born Republic of Ireland international score. That first goal came in a game at Hearts and as part of an amazing sequence of events in a six minute spell, the striker came on as sub, scored and then got sent off! If you ever watch that goal back you’ll see that actually despite an empty goal he actually almost missed it. He was a curious striker.

At Airdrie’s old ground, Broomfield, it was just after he scored what, apparently, was his ‘trademark goal’ – gets the ball, back to goal, and uses his massive fat arse to roll the defender and shoot from the edge of the box. We saw this once and once only. However, it’s fair to say luck was rarely on Tony Cascarino’s side and after his goal he clattered into a police woman at the enclosure side and given the huge disparity in body weight, she got badly hurt. She tried to sue for damages, and if correct, it was as she claimed that she had to retire from the police force on account of the incident. By the time she brought the action, Fergus McCann was in the big chair at Celtic as Chief Exec and she got nowt as the judge threw out her case, but it was another Cascarino headache.

Moving on, he would score the equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Ibrox on 2nd November which rather belatedly gained him some kudos. His name rang around Ibrox as the Celtic support finally praised him in unison, and Cascarino lapped it up as he deserved to for a change.

However, it was too little, too late, and his time at Parkhead would be mercifully brief. It was all bizarre, if he was not scoring he could have been providing assists for his fellow strikers but was incapable of that. He was hopeless on the pitch and had poor ball control, it just didn’t add up how the valuation ever tallied to the amount we paid for him.

The transfer fee amount hung over his head, and not even the most charitable amongst the support was piping up to back him. He just was an unmitigated failure at Celtic. It was the early days of the backlash against the Biscuit Tin board and “Sack The Board” was beginning, and in its own way the heavy price of failure that was Cascarino’s transfer was to have a negative impact on the confidence in the club’s board as the repercussions of the failings fed through. Rangers were ramping up and being spendthrift on transfers. The fact that once we spent heavily that we ended up squandering it on players like Cascarino wasn’t helping matters.

After 30 appearances and a poor total of just four goals, Cascarino departed Celtic in February 1992 in a great piece of business for the Celts which saw Tom Boyd head the other way. The first game after the transfer saw all the fans in the Jungle singing “Let’s all laugh at Chelsea!” repeatedly. The support really were relieved to see him go, but many smiled that at least he had managed to score once against Rangers.

In his unconventional autobiography, the book had a chapter on his time at Celtic and he was scathing, complaining of the divided nature of football in Glasgow and his frustration of his time at the club. Disappointing but it was a difficult time for the club and Brady was not a great manager. However, on various other occasions he has spoken very well of Celtic and the support, so it is hard to know how he really felt, but overall it was a very difficult time for himself. He did have mental issues which he admitted in his book (usually due to self-doubt). Strangely, he never mentioned the incident with the police woman in the book (must have been already too much strangeness in the book as it was).

Disturbingly, for someone who played 18 years as a professional footballer in the centre-forward position, he admitted in his biography that his Achilles’ heel was the low ball played across his body in front of goal. To gently remind you, our manager paid out £1.1m for his services (which in those days was a very high price for a player in the UK).

He fell out with the Celtic manager (Liam Brady) before he left, and their relationship turned decidedly frosty with Brady very frustrated at the poor showing of his key signing. Maybe Brady expected too much and his previous close relationship with Cascarino was blinding him to reality. Tony Cascarino is said to have complained that: “Celtic played too much football to suit my game“. A bizarre comment but further questions Liam Brady’s plans when he was setting the team out to play a lot of skilled passing football. Where was Cascarino to fit into all this? Best now left all filed far away.

Since leaving Celtic, Cascarino’s career on the one hand became one that only a maverick satirical author could write about, but on the other hand there were deep personal family, social and mental issues too which are best left for somewhere else more appropriate to discuss.

At time of writing he has made a mark in the media world as a pundit (albeit another who provides no genuine cerebral insights), and it’s probably better there for him than back on the frontline in coaching.

His time at Celtic can be best summed up by the following quote from himself:

“If I am honest, I don’t think I realised how big the club was. I joined them from Aston Villa, then a pretty big club in England, and I felt as if my career was taking a step backwards. At the time Celtic wallowed in the shadow of Rangers. We were a poor side, barely making an indent into Rangers’ supremacy in the league. It was, perhaps, the biggest regret of my career that I was unsuccessful there. I was proud to play for them but, on reflection, I should have stayed and endeavoured to develop. But I wasn’t a strong enough personality to be able to cope with the religious bigotry off the field.” (Tony Cascarino, 2003)

Quotes

“Celtic played too much football to suit my game.”
Tony Cascarino

“I will never forget the night after I scored at Ibrox. I got quite drunk in a Chinese Restaurant. I then kept falling asleep, and the waiters kept shaking me to wake me up. All I kept saying/singing was ‘Who put the ball in the Ranger’s net? I did!’”.
Tony Cascarino on scoring against Rangers at Ibrox, Nov 1991

“My name was ringing around Ibrox, something I had never heard at Celtic Park.”
Tony Cascarino recalls scoring at Ibrox in 1991

“If I am honest, I don’t think I realised how big the club was. I joined them from Aston Villa, then a pretty big club in England, and I felt as if my career was taking a step backwards. At the time Celtic wallowed in the shadow of Rangers. We were a poor side, barely making an indent into Rangers’ supremacy in the league. It was, perhaps, the biggest regret of my career that I was unsuccessful there. I was proud to play for them but, on reflection, I should have stayed and endeavoured to develop. But I wasn’t a strong enough personality to be able to cope with the religious bigotry off the field.”
Tony Cascarino, 2003

“Fifty thousand Celtic fans jump to their feet… They see Tony Cascarino slipping his marker and breaking free. They see the winger cross the ball low to the striker’s feet. They see a million pound player in front of an open Rangers goal with a glorious opportunity at his feet…They do not see the fear on my face at that moment. They do not believe their eyes when I swipe frantically and completely miss the target. They do not feel compassion when I fall to my knees and cover my face in shame.”
From Cascarino’s biography

“At the end of October we travelled to Switzerland to play Neuchatel in the second round of the UEFA cup…It was one of those awful nights when anything that can go wrong does go wrong; and when I wasn’t giving the ball away, I was tripping over myself … Liam pulled me off early in the second half. We were hammered 5-1 and the fans had a real go as we walked from the pitch. Liam was incensed in the dressing room. His team had played shamefully. His first managerial signing was making a mockery of him. ‘What the **** is going on, Tony? You were a disaster! I’ve never seen you play so badly!’ ‘Yeah, I dunno… I just… I was just crap.'”
From Cascarino’s biography

On scoring his first goal for Celtic against Hearts after coming off the bench and then being sent off and conceding a penalty for punching Craig Levein in the box – all within seven minutes: “I thought: Wait a minute! I’ve just given away a penalty! I’ve just been sent off! What are our supporters so happy about? But later, when it was explained to me that Hearts were the ‘Rangers’ of the two teams in Edinburgh (Hibernian being the ‘Celtic’ equivalent), the fog began to clear. Slowly, I was learning the rules of engagement; with every day that passed, I was becoming more familiar with the language of contempt . . . ‘blue noses’, ‘huns’, ‘wee orange bastards’. Today’s lesson was that there was only one thing better than scoring against the ‘Huns’, and that was scoring against the Huns and then smacking one in the mouth.”
From Cascarino’s biography

“I suffered a lot at Celtic. I was never fit and my confidence hit an all time low. I was banging away the goals for fun in training, but that’s no good is it? “As soon as I got on the park on a Saturday I couldn’t hit a cow’s backside with a banjo and that must be how Vennegoor of Hesselink and Samaras feel right now. “Nothing goes right for you. Even my first goal didn’t go according to plan. “I was a sub in a game against Hearts and scored a few minutes after coming on. “A few minutes later I got my second cheer of the day when I picked up a red card for belting Craig Levein with my elbow. “I was on the park for six minutes that day, I scored, celebrated and then walked up the tunnel for an early bath! “I also got a goal against Rangers and that lifted the pressure — just as it will do for the Celtic strikers on Sunday. Even that was a gift from Nigel Spackman. He passed the ball to me and I raced on to score. “I didn’t hang around long after that. I was only at Celtic for nine months when I decided it was the right time to leave. “If I’d stuck it out it might have been different. “Still, it wasn’t to be and I had a good laugh with Nigel when we hooked up at Chelsea. “I said: ‘Cheers for the pass Nigel, it’s the only time you’ve set me up for a goal’. As a striker you’d take any goal, at any time and I’m sure there are a couple at Celtic right now who’d agree with that.”
Tony Cascarino (2009)

After Celtic were humiliated by Neuchatel Xamax 5-1 in Europe, Celtic stalwart & coach Neil Mochan asked the hapless Cascarino at training:
“Can you make chips son? Because you can’t play football!”

“I felt the burning hostility, especially when a pie hit me on the chest.”
Tony Cascarino on Celtic v Rangers at Ibrox

“I don’t want to make excuses. My only regret is that it was the perfect move at the wrong time. I didn’t show what I was close to being capable of. It was my worst time in football. The worst. It should have been the perfect scenario: Irish centre-forward plays well for Celtic. It wasn’t.”
Tony Cascarino (2017)

“I had a Chinese delivered just moments after the announcement. It felt wrong and very disrespectful to eat it, so as a mark of respect I threw it in the bin.”
Tony Cascarino on Radio TalkSport talking about on hearing about the passing of the UK Queen Elizabeth II (2022)

“I remember doing a dinner in Glasgow a few years ago. I was talking about my private life and I told the audience I had been married three times and had seven kids. Then this guy shouts out ‘You’ve got more kids than goals for Celtic!’ Even I had to laugh.”
Tony Cascarino (2023)

Playing Career

Articles

• Tony Cascarino on Celtic Fans – “Celtic Fans are a special breed… ” (The Times)

Pictures

• Player Pics

Anecdote: “Banjos and Cows’ Arses”

Even though he was with the club for a very short space of time, Cascarino is still ridiculed in Scottish football circles. Lampooned by the wags that “he couldnae even hit a coo’s arse wae a banjo!“, BBC Scotland’s “Off The Ball” decided to put this to the test.

In front of a studio audience, two BBC staff members dressed up in a pantomime costume as a ‘cow’ whilst another member of staff brought in his father’s trusty old banjo (as you would) to help out.

Cascarino was next asked to assist in the act by proving to the public that what they were saying about him was wrong.

Taking the banjo in both hands, he relished the chance to prove his doubters wrong. However, he was a bit over eager, and Cascarino ended up walloping the poor ‘cow’ as hard as he could. The audience went quiet and all that could be heard were the poor squeals of pain from the poor stage hand (“Neil”) who made up the ‘cow’s’ arse. The banjo was broken into two (how was the guy going to explain that to his old man?) and poor wee Neil ended up in hospital.

The moral of this story? Err…. leave poor cows’ arses alone we guess!
(Anecdote from BBC Radio Scotland’s “Off The Ball” Aug 09)

Big match cop loses cash fight.

A policewoman who had to quit the force after a Celtic star collided with her at a match has lost a pounds 215,000 damages action.

Rachel Gillon, 36, was pushed into a barrier when Tony Cascarino hit her.

She was knocked out and later had to give up her job because of severe back injuries.

Mum-of-two Rachel, of Lang-bank, Renfrewshire, was patrolling the track at an Airdrie-Celtic game five years ago when crowd trouble broke out.

She had her back to the pitch watching what was happening when Cascarino ran into her.

The policewoman, who had been in the force for 14 years, sued Strathclyde’s Chief Constable and Airdrie FC.

She claimed the police should have warned her to keep an eye on the pitch and the club should have provided a barrier between the edge of the pitch and the track.

But at the Court of Session in Edinburgh yesterday, a judge threw out her claim, saying no one was to blame for the “unfortunate and tragic” incident.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Scottish Daily Record & Sunday

Tony Cascarino on the Old Firm derby: ‘It was the hatred that shocked me. There is no other word, trust me’

Tony Cascarino on the Old Firm derby: ‘It was the hatred that shocked me. There is no other word, trust me’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4911876/Tony-Cascarino-Old-Firm-derby-hatred-shocked-me.html?ITO=1490
Tony Cascarino says the Old Firm derby is the fiercest game he’s ever played in
He endured an injury-hit spell at Parkhead where he took stick from Celtic fans
In his second derby he scored one of his four Celtic goals in a 1-1 draw

By Hugh Macdonald For The Scottish Daily Mail

Published: 00:47, 23 September 2017 | Updated: 00:51, 23 September 2017

He has a dream. ‘It is always an Old Firm game and it is scoreless. John Collins sprints down the wing and he crosses the ball to me. I am free, slipped my marker, and in front of goal. The ball comes across me and I swipe at it. I miss. The crowd groans, then screams at me. My mother is in the stand crying. My son is shouting that I’m not very good.

‘This never happened, it’s only a dream,’ says Tony Cascarino.

The reality, though, was painful enough. Celtic travel to Rangers on Saturday and some memories cause a painful, dull clang that echo down the years.

Anthony Guy Cascarino, born 55 years ago in Kent, played for four clubs that have won the Champions League/European Cup: Chelsea, Aston Villa, Celtic and Marseille. He pulled on the Republic of Ireland jersey 88 times and played in a European Championship and two World Cups.

But the unbidden images of an imaginary humiliation against Rangers still haunt his nights after his turbulent, frantic and ultimately dispiriting spell at Celtic from July 1991 until February 1992.

‘I have several recurring dreams,’ adds Cascarino. ‘The Collins one is a regular as is one where I am a footballer again and, being 55, am trying to hide my age as I seek a new contract.’

The latter reverie is always set in France. ‘I played really well at Marseille,’ he says. ‘It was after Celtic and Chelsea and I was let go by both. But Marseille was good.’

He played for the French side for three seasons, leading them back into the top flight after the depredations of owner Bernard Tapie. He scored 61 goals in 88 appearances. He was known as Tony Goals.

He was known by other names in Glasgow. He tells a story in his autobiography, published in 2000, of being harangued in public by a critic he encountered early in his stay with Celtic.

He relived the experience with his team-mates, who told him that sort of unpleasant experience was to be expected in Glasgow where the rivalries are both visible and audible. Cascarino replied sheepishly that his tormentor was a Celtic supporter.

This sort of criticism has survived the passage of time.

‘I was on TalkSport chortling about how surreal it was for Celtic to go from playing Hamilton Academical to facing Paris Saint-Germain,’ he adds. ‘I got a Tweet from a guy saying I was the worst player ever to have been at the club and I had no right to laugh at Celtic.’

The former striker, now a commentator on radio, television and newspapers, is the epitome of the gnarled old pro, scarred by experience rather than invigorated by past glory. He was once, though, the innocent abroad.

On a Glasgow derby Saturday, he speaks to the power of an Old Firm match and the unease it can prompt in players who have no conception of its significance.

Rangers will almost certainly field a side bristling with Glasgow derby debutants. They may come from Scotland, Mexico, Portugal and elsewhere. They will share an unsettling unfamiliarity with an extraordinary match.

Cascarino played in big games at club and international level but the two Rangers matches he featured in were simply unlike anything else in his career.

‘I was staying at a hotel when I came to Celtic and, on the morning of the first Rangers match, I went down to reception and everyone was talking about the game,’ says Cascarino of a Celtic side that included such players/fans as Peter Grant, Charlie Nicholas, Gerry Creaney, Tommy Coyne and Paul McStay.

‘It was clear that we couldn’t lose. That came not just from the fans but it was the mindset of the players all week.

‘The players were clear that we couldn’t come in on Monday morning after a defeat.

‘The build-up causes a lot of pressure. Everyone knows that defeat is not an option. But it was the hatred that shocked me. There is no other word, trust me. It was not just among the fans but it seemed to infect the players, too. The atmosphere was poisonous.’

The first of his two Old firm games was a 2-0 loss at Parkhead.

‘Rangers were the dominant side then. How the circle has turned. But they were and beat us cosily,’ he says.

The tribalism of the time unnerved him.

‘I was used to socialising with players from other teams,’ he adds. ‘I had an issue at Celtic because Terry Hurlock was my friend — I played with him at Millwall — and he was at Rangers.

‘I would have a drink with Terry and I was told by some players: “You were out drinking with a Rangers player”. I would reply: “Not really, he’s a Millwall player. That’s how I know him”.

‘But that situation was alien to me. In London, you’d go out with players from other clubs. It was made known to me here that was unacceptable. It was new to me and I didn’t quite get it.

‘I didn’t quite understand the ferociousness of the relationship between Celtic and Rangers. I knew about it, of course. But you can’t prepare yourself for it and you can’t understand any of it until you are into it. And even then…’

The second Old Firm game offered him a limited redemption. It ended 1-1 and Cascarino scored for Celtic. He latched on to an errant back pass and finished slickly. This confident, emphatic moment was in contrast to generally tentative performances that yielded just four goals for the club.

He is blunt and unforgiving about his time at Celtic. He admitted in his autobiography that he was a ‘negative thinker’ and believes this trait plagued his time in Glasgow.

‘I came into football late, through the back door,’ he says of an amateur career that ended when Gillingham signed him.

‘When you are young and raw, you don’t think it about it too much. You attack everything. You throw yourself at anything and everything. But when you are established as a million-pound player, then you start to think. And when I start to think I can get self-doubt.’

He talks of the internal voice that tried to sabotage every match, compromise his every chance of scoring.

‘My naivety went and it was replaced by doubt,’ he insists. ‘My confidence was shot at Celtic.’

When Liam Brady, his friend and then manager, told him after one match that he was c**p, Cascarino could only agree.

‘I don’t want to make excuses,’ he says of his time at Celtic. ‘My only regret is that it was the perfect move at the wrong time. I didn’t show what I was close to being capable of. It was my worst time in football. The worst. It should have been the perfect scenario: Irish centre-forward plays well for Celtic. It wasn’t.’

He arrived at Celtic with a knee injury that restricted his preparation. It was the perfect storm with a health issue affecting his ability to become fully fit. The weight piled on, the confidence slipped away.

‘I struggled in a struggling team with a manager who was struggling,’ he says. ‘I was made a scapegoat and that is fair because I didn’t play well. If I put on a little bit of timber, I suddenly look and feel not very athletic and I struggle. I was not in peak condition then.

‘I am still proud that I scored against Rangers. That meant a lot to Celtic fans. Everything that had gone before was forgotten for 30 seconds, at least.’

So, what advice can he give to the debutants, most of whom will be playing in light-blue shirts against a dominant Celtic.

‘I can relate to them in that they will be the underdogs,’ he says.

He pauses before blurting out: ‘Cor blimey.’ The one-time pride of the Republic of Ireland has not forgotten the Cockney vernacular but he remembers the language of Old Firm matches, too.

‘I would say: “Don’t even think of enjoying it. Roll up your sleeves and put your tin hat on”.’

A veteran of Old Firm mayhem is remembering the front line and, perhaps, the wounds it inflicted.

From his Autobiography

Former Celtic striker lifts lid on dressing room ‘cliques’, wage issues, and regretting Parkhead move

2023
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/former-celtic-striker-lifts-lid-on-dressing-room-cliques-wage-issues-and-regretting-parkhead-move-4006122
Former Celtic striker Tony Cascarino has opened up on his struggles at Parkhead and admitted he regretted not signing for Southampton instead.

Matthew Elder
By Matthew Elder

Cascarino joined Celtic for a then club record fee of £1.1million from Aston Villa in 1991 but he struggled to make an impact and returned to England less than a year later, moving to Chelsea in a swap deal for Tom Boyd.

Now 60, the 88-times capped Republic of Ireland international, who also had a stint playing in France, revealed that his short-lived stint at Celtic was the only time in his career that he had requested a transfer.

He also lifted the the lid on what he perceived to be a fractured dressing room under then manager Liam Brady as Celtic ended the season trophyless and finished third in the Scottish Premier Division behind champions Rangers and runners-up Hearts.

He wishes now he had taken up an offer to move to Southampton instead of moving north and joining up with his Irish colleagues in the east end of Glasgow.

“I had spoken to Southampton and then Celtic came in for me and obviously I knew Liam Brady from the Republic of Ireland squad and I even roomed with him on one trip which was amazing because here I was sharing a room with such a star,” Cascarino said in an interview with MyBettingSites.

“He was the main reason I went to Celtic. I couldn’t turn them down because they are such a world-renowned club which huge support and I let my heart rule my head on that one – the reality is I should have gone to Southampton.

“I don’t think I did Liam any favours and I didn’t do any for myself. I got a lot of stick there as I wasn’t playing well. I was in and out of training.

“I knew Packie Bonner and Chris Morris from the Ireland team and I wish they had said a little bit more to me because I quickly realised the dressing room wasn’t particularly good.

“There seemed to be cliques and there was quite a difference in the money players were on.

“It just didn’t work out for me at Celtic. I was the record signing at the club and that wasn’t reflected in my performances. I had never asked for a transfer in my life but I walked into Liam Brady’s office and I said to him ‘It’s just not working out’.

“I wasn’t demanding to go but we discussed that I wasn’t playing and it would be better for both if I got away and we managed to do the swap deal with Tommy Boyd.

“So I went to Chelsea and Tommy came to Celtic and he went on to be a fantastic player for Celtic.

“I remember doing a dinner in Glasgow a few years ago. I was talking about my private life and I told the audience I had been married three times and had seven kids.

“Then this guy shouts out ‘You’ve got more kids than goals for Celtic!’ Even I had to laugh.”