MacKay, Malky

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Personal

Fullname: Malcolm George Mackay
aka: Malky Mackay, Malcolm Mackay
Born: 19 February 1972
Birthplace: Bellshill, Scotland
Height: 6ft 1in (1.85m)
Signed: 6 August 1993
Left: 21 September 1998
Position: Defender, Centre-half
Debut: Dundee Utd 0-1 Celtic, League, 13 May 1995
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 5
International Goals: 0

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Biog

Bellshill-born Malcolm George MacKay was a product of the Queen’s Park youth set-up who was signed for Celtic by Liam Brady in August 1993. He made his senior debut at the end of the 1994/95 season against Dundee United at Tannadice on 13th May, 1995 in a 1-0 win to Celtic which confirmed the Arabs relegation from the Premier Division, which at the time was a major shock as Dundee Utd had been a major force in Scottish football for much the 1980s through to the early 1990s.

The centre-half would stay four seasons at Parkhead but failed to establish himself as a first-team regular. Strong and good in the air he was let down by a lack of pace but he did manage to score the opener with a thumping header as Celtic knocked Rangers out of the Scottish Cup 2-0 in March 1997. This turned out to be a pivotal moment in the season, as without this win Rangers would have gone on to have won a treble, so Malky MacKay helped stop Rangers in their tracks (although they still punished Celtic with four wins out of four in the league).

Big things were hoped for Malky MacKay, but he was at Celtic through the barren years which were difficult for any player and the management never utilised him as well as they could have. In truth, with such a high turnover of managers as during the period, it was not suitable for the development of any player. Malky Mackay was not the only one to suffer. Didn’t help that Tommy Burns pressed little importance on the defence in comparison to the attack, so the defence was often hampered by this loss of focus. Too often a complaint was that whilst the first team were excellent going forward, in defence they were poor.

Despite the difficult environment, he managed a number of games for the first team and gave his all when asked. For that we very much respect him. The club was in transition and competing against many hindrances (e.g. partisan media, frustrated support etc) but Malky MacKay did well when asked.

He got to also play a handful of games in the wonderful 1997-98 season to help Celtic win the league to stop Ranger’s 10-in-a-row league titles. Disappointingly for him, he was sidelined early in the season but he still played his small part in that campaign and that must be respected. After all the travails at Celtic, it was a great experience to have to be part of the squad at that time.

He joined Norwich in September 1998 and went on to become a regular feature in the Norwich defence, earning a call up to the Scotland squad. After leaving Norwich in 2004, he subsequently joined both West Ham and Watford. He is possibly the only player to have gained three successive promotions to the English Premier League with three different clubs.

Post-playing career

He moved into first team management, and became quite highly regarded having done well with Watford and then Cardiff, guiding the latter to the English Premiership. He was sacked by Cardiff in 2013 after a string of poor results and a degree of antagonism with the owners. In 2014 he was involved in a sexism, homophobia and racism SMS (i.e. text messages) scandal when Cardiff sent a dossier to the English FA. This was a paramount factor on him missing the managership of Crystal Palace.

Malky MacKay apologised for his texts recognising the inappropriateness of their content and agreed to undergo awareness training. He was subsequently appointed manager of Championship side Wigan with the scandal still refusing to go away, but left the role in 2015 as his side floundered.

He returned to Scotland in contentious circumstances as he was appointed the SFA’s performance director, responsible for overseeing the development of young players. This went down badly across many parties, including the bulk of the Celtic support. He was appointed caretaker manager of Scotland on 13 October 2017, following the departure of Gordon Strachan as manager, and combined this role with his existing role with the Scottish FA, to be then followed by EBT tax cheat Alex McLeish. So overall, the SFA seemed to be appointing people to further devalue their stature in the eyes of the general football support it seemed in Scotland.

In fairness to Malky Mackay, the anti-racism campaign group Kick It Out made comments that were supportive of Malky Mackay, pointing out that he had since received equality and diversity training from the (English) FA. However, many saw the moves of late of some figureheads as jobs for the boys, a rotten cronyism.

He moved on to become the manager at Ross County, where he did a very admirable job (albeit his appointment was still not wholly accepted across the game).

[….]

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Quotes

“I was in awe of some of the players I played with in that team. Paul McStay is the best player I have played with and he is in midfield. Di Canio, Van Hooijdonk and Thom up top – it was remarkable the players we had. Cadete was also involved. It was a swashbuckling Celtic side and that certainly looks to be the way this Celtic team has been playing over the last few weeks.”
Malky Mackay (2021)

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Playing Career

Club	From	To	Fee	League		Scottish/FA Cup		League cup		Other
Watford	19/08/2005	31/05/2008	Free	48 (4)	3	4 (0)	2	1 (1)	0	3 (0)	0
West Ham	10/09/2004	19/08/2005	£ 300000	17 (1)	2	3 (0)	0	1 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Norwich	21/09/1998	10/09/2004	£ 350000	198 (14)	15	8 (0)	0	8 (1)	0	3 (0)	1
Norwich	18/09/1998	20/09/1998	Loan	0 (1)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Celtic	06/08/1993	21/09/1998	Free	30 (4)	4	4 (0)	2	5 (1)	0	0 (0)	0
Queen’s Park	01/08/1992	06/08/1993	Youth	70 (0)	6	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Totals			£650,000	363 (24)	30	19 (0)	4	15 (3)	0	6 (0)	1
			goals / game	0.07		0.21		0		0.16
				Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals

Honours with Celtic

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