Provan, Davie

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Personal

Fullname: David Provan
aka: Davie Provan, Provo
Born: 8 May 1956
Birthplace: Gourock, Scotland
Signed: 18 September 1978 (from Kilmarnock)
Left: 15 February 1987 (Retired)
Position: Right-winger
First game : Partick Thistle league away 3-2, 23 September 1978
Last game : Motherwell league home 3-2, 15 January 1986
First goal : Hibernian league away 2-2, 18 November 1978
Last goal : Aberdeen league away 1-4, 2 November 1985
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 10
International Goals: 1 (v Israel April 1981)

Biog

Davie Provan was a classy right winger who was a fantastic crosser of a ball and must have created, literally, hundreds of goals for Celtic during his time at Parkhead.

He had came to prominence when first division Kilmarnock created a major shock in March 1978 when they knocked Celtic out of the Scottish Cup in a replay at Rugby Park. Provan was the best man afield over the two games and Celtic beat a host of clubs for his signature when they signed him for a Scottish record fee of £120,000 in September 1978 although he had a struggle with the Kilmarnock directors before he was allowed to leave as they did not approve of his destination to Glasgow’s east end.

Provan had asked Kilmarnock for a transfer twice before with his desire to play full-time, rather than the part-time status at Kilmarnock where he combined training and playing with working for a distillery in Paisley. Davie and his family had a strong Rangers background but he did not hesitate when the chance came to sign for Celtic.

Celtic Career
At Celtic, he made an impressive debut at Firhill in an exciting 3-2 win on 23rd September 1978, making the Celtic number seven position his own for years to come.

His first goal was a wonderful swerving effort at Easter Road on 18th November 1978 and by the Spring he was a big favourite with the Celtic fans who loved his exciting wing play and delivery. In May 1979 he became a Celtic great when he played a starring role in Celtic’s marvellous 4-2 win against Rangers at Parkhead on the night when the Celts won the League title with 10 men, displaying a courage and energy that was well above the call of duty.

By the 1979/80 season Davie was a Celtic mainstay in the first team and continued his great form. On October 3rd 1979 Celtic found themselves 2-0 down on aggregate to the Albanians of Partizan Tirana in the European Cup after an Alan Sneddon own goal at home. Provan led the Celtic fightback and created four goals in the next twenty four minutes, all from his cross balls, as Celtic blitzed the startled Albanians and stormed to a 4-1 win. This led ultimately to a glamour tie with Real Madrid and Celtic triumphed 2-0 at home on a night where Dave played a major role but this Celtic side was still inexperienced and capitulated 3-0 in the return leg in Spain.

Davie Provan had by now become a regular in Jock Stein’s Scotland squads having made his debut against Belguim in December 1979. He was elected as Scotland’s player of the year in April 1980 which was richly deserved although Celtic wasted a considerable lead and lost their title to Aberdeen in the race for the championship.

This led to pressure on the team to win the Scottish Cup final against Rangers on 10th May 1980. Davie was man of the match in many people’s eyes with a gutsy display in an unusual deeper midfield role and it was from his corner that led to George McCluskey’s winning goal, however that glory was overshadowed by events after the match on the pitch due to a pitch invasion by the Hun Supporters.

At this point in his career Davie Provan was one of the most distinctive players in British football with his long flowing permed curly hair, jersey outside the shorts, and socks flapping around his ankles. His exciting runs on the wing and fine crossing ability were a major part of a successful period for Celtic.

The 1980/81 season began slowly for Celtic, and Davie was out of the side for a short spell with injury. After the New Year, Celtic went on a fine unbeaten run and it was no coincidence that this came with his return to fitness in the team. Celtic were unbeaten from December 27th until May 2nd and won the title with a fine brand of attacking football with Davie supplying the ammunition for McGarvey, Nicholas and McCluskey to score the goals that propelled them to the League title.

He had a wonderful game against Rangers in the 3-1 win in February 1981 and created the winning goal for Nicholas in the 1-0 win at Ibrox on April 18th. Four days later the League was clinched with a 3-2 win at Tannadice with Davie’s crosses creating two of Celtic’s three goals. He was crucial to the team.

In April 1981 he scored his first Scotland goal in the 3-1 win over Israel at Hampden in a World Cup qualifier. On May 23rd he had a fine game in Scotland’s 1-0 win over Hampden at Wembley when Steve Archibald won Scotland a penalty after Davie’s fine through ball, John Robertson scoring the winner from the subsequent spot kick.

In the Autumn of 1981 he had a magnificent run of form and scored a wonder goal against St Johnstone in the League Cup in a 4-1 win at Parkhead. In September he ran the Rangers defence ragged at Ibrox in Celtic’s 2-0 win and also destroyed the Aberdeen defence at Pittodrie in an excellent Celtic 3-1 win. He had injury problems in the New Year of 1982 but came back strongly to help Celtic clinch their second successive title in May 1982. That summer he was part of the 22 man Scotland squad in Spain for the World Cup finals but sadly did not play in any of their three games.

In early 1982/83 he carried on where he had left off the previous season and he scored a fine goal against Dundee, a shot on the run, in Celtic’s opening League game on 4th September on the day when the league flag was unfurled. Celtic reached the League Cup final on December 4th and won it by 2-1 against Rangers at Hampden. Davie had perhaps his finest ever game that day when he ripped Rangers left flank to shreds and it was he who created both Celtic goals and won the sponsors man of the match in the process.

On 1st January 1983, Celtic won the Ne’erday derby 2-1 at Ibrox, their third victory over the Huns in nine happy weeks. In this game, Rangers fielded a different left back in the three games as they struggled to cope with Davie’s fine wing play. On a sadder note Celtic lost their title to Dundee United despite a fine 4-2 win at Ibrox on the last day of the season.

Davie Hay took over as Celtic manager in July 1983 after Billy McNeill’s resignation. This led to a rather inconsistent period for Celtic and Davie’s form suffered slightly. On November 2nd he returned to form and helped Celtic to a glorious 5-0 win over Sporting Lisbon in the UEFA cup. Three days later Celtic won 2-1 at Ibrox but Celtic’s mood was dampened with a bad knee injury to Davie Provan. John Colquhoun joined Celtic in December and gave Davie competition for the right wing position although Davie won his place back in the spring of 1984 and had a good game against Aberdeen in the 1984 Scottish Cup final as Celtic, with 10 men, went down bravely by 2-1.

In the autumn of 1984, Davie was in great form again and scored a memorable winner with a swerving free kick against Aberdeen on October 6th. His fine performance against Rapid Vienna helped Celtic to a 3-0 win which UEFA controversially overturned. After a spell out of the side he won his place back after a fine display against Aberdeen when he came on as a sub and changed the game in Celtic’s favour with a 2-0 win.

Celtic fought their way to the Scottish Cup final against Dundee United on 18th May 1985 and it was at Hampden that Davie Provan had his finest hour. With Celtic toiling and 1-0 down (after a Stewart Beedie goal) he swerved a glorious free kick past Hamish McAlpine from 25 yards, one of the finest goals ever scored at Hampden. Celtic pulverised United in the last 20 minutes and Frank McGarvey scored a dramatic late winner to give Davie Hay his first trophy as Celtic manager.

Davie Provan spent some time in the summer of 1985 in Australia with a team in Melbourne in order to get his fitness up and it worked as he was Celtic’s best player in the early months of the season with rumours of another international call up coming his way.

However Celtic went down tamely to Rangers by 3-0 at Ibrox on November 9th and Davie was substituted after feeling very ill during the game. He was later diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomiyietis (ME) an illness which causes great fatigue and although Davie later overcame it, it would be the end of his career.

He bravely tried a comeback on January 15th against Motherwell as substitute for Owen Archdeacon but sadly retired in 1987.

Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest side travelled north to play Celtic on Provan’s testimonial game. 42,000 Celtic fans turned out on a bitterly cold night on 30th November 1987, in the middle of Celtic’s Centenary season, when Kenny Dalglish guested for Celtic on the night. At the end of the game Davie took an emotional lap of honour around Parkhead for one last time. After all he had achieved with Celtic it was a sad night for the fans who loved Davie on the Celtic right flank and his sublime crossing ability.

Davie Provan played 303 times for Celtic in the major competitions and scored 42 goals, and will be ranked among the finest wingers of his generation in Britain and the best wide men to ever don the Hoops. When you consider that puts Provan beside names like Patsy Gallacher, Tommy McInally and Jimmy Johnstone it illustrates just what a talent he was.

After playing, he went onto be a successful football pundit with Sky Sports and other media outlets (including Clyde One) where he retains a high profile, and bucks the trend by putting some genuine foresight and intelligence into his comments on the game. However, he had penned a number of articles that irked or baffled the Celtic support, so was seen by some of the most critical to be playing to this paymasters. Nevertheless, compared to his media competition, he was still above average.

He retired in 2022 and moved to Spain.

[…]

Playing Career

Articles

• Celtic for me (From “Its Rangers for me?”)

Media

• Player Pics

Testimonial Match

• 1987-11-30: Celtic 1-3 Nottingham Forest

Quotes

“Davie Provan was running rings round Alex McDonald. After one of his runs he walked past wee Doddy and said: ‘I could keep a beach ball away from you in a phone box!'”
Peter Grant on the funniest thing he ever heard in football (it was during a game v Rangers)

“I was brought up in a house that supported Rangers and voted Labour. I signed for Celtic & voted for Maggie [Thatcher] 3 times.”
Davie Provan

“The Rangers thing is gone for me. There is no part of me now that wishes I had played at Ibrox. It was my up-bringing and it was ingrained into me but I wouldn’t swap my Celtic career for anything. The irony is, between signing for Celtic in 1978 and 1986, when I played my last game for the club, Rangers didn’t win the title. I won four championship medals and Rangers were never at the races. Who knows what would have happened if I had signed for Rangers but I don’t have an ounce of regret, none whatsoever.”
Davie Provan

“Davie Provan had these tight jeans and loved wearing four-inch heels because he wanted to look taller.”
George McCluskey

“Only twice before in the history of the Scottish Cup, have goals been scored direct from a free kick. Is this a bit of history…? It IS!”
Archie MacPherson’s live commentary of Davie Provan’s goal in the 1985 Scottish Cup Final

Articles

The Bhoy in the Picture: Davie Provan

Written by St Anthony
Wednesday, 01 April 2009
Source: http://archive.celticunderground.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=820&Itemid=72

Remember to click on the thumbnail to see the image. Once the pop up has appeared you can right click and select to view the image. This will let you see it in its full size glory.

The 1977/78 season was an unmitigated disaster for Celtic; fifth place in the league and no trophies won meant no European place for the first time since 1961, but perhaps the biggest debacle was the defeat to Kilmarnock in the Scottish cup replay at Rugby Park. Celtic were lucky to survive the first game and only a late Roddy MacDonald goal had saved the Celts’ blushes against the part time first division Ayrshire men. Killie deservedly won the replay and the gloomy mood of the huge number of Celtic fans who left Rugby Park on that dark February night and travelled back over the Fenwick Moors was compared by one scribe as akin to ‘Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow’.

There was one talking point amongst the Celtic support after the game and that was the performance of the Kilmarnock right winger, Davie Provan. He had tortured Celtic’s left flank in both cup ties, firstly giving Tommy Burns and then John Dowie a torrid time. The fact that Celtic had played two midfield men out of position at left back did not detract in any way from Provan’s sparkling performances.

In late summer 1978 I was in St. Gerard’s secondary school in Govan and my PE teacher was a guy called Jackie McGillivray who was at that time an Albion Rovers player and had previously been with St Mirren and Kilmarnock. On the morning it was announced that Davie Provan had signed for Celtic he was ecstatic and said it was Celtic’s best signing for years. And he was not wrong, although Provan’s transfer was not to be a smooth one. Kilmarnock were desperate for money but their board were not happy about his destination and only the threat of Provan going full time at a Paisley whiskey bond was to push the deal through. And so on September 18th 1978 Davie Provan became a Celtic player in a £125,000 record Scottish deal.

Davie was an immediate hit at Celtic and was a fans’ favourite for the next eight years. He was one of a select band of players who was comfortable playing in a wide position and was a superb crosser of the ball (a dying art in this part of the world) particularly whilst on the run and his entertaining style of play was to create many goals for Celtic in the following years. His distinctive flowing curly locks (look at him on TV these days and to think I used to presume he had naturally curly hair !), jersey hanging over the shorts and socks around the ankles made him a unique figure on the field of play.

Provan, unusually for a winger, was a marvellously consistent player and was a stand out even in an era when there were many quality wingers in the Scottish game such as Weir, Cooper, McLean, Milne, Scanlon and Doyle. The irony is that Provan’s arrival was seen as the end of Johnny Doyle’s Celtic career but Doyle was versatile enough to play in a number of positions and the two of them became great friends. Doyle even invested in a permed hair style and from a distance it was then difficult to tell them apart.

By all accounts Davie also had a sense of humour and was heard to remark to a snarling Alex MacDonald of Rangers in the heat of a Glasgow Derby, that he could ‘keep a beach ball off him in a telephone box…!’
He was an integral part of two of the finest Celtic forward lines of the modern era in the early 1980’s. The first being Provan, Sullivan, McGarvey, Burns and McCluskey and the second – Provan McStay, McGarvey, Burns and Nicholas. He had many great games for Celtic although perhaps his finest was the League Cup Final in December 1982, when he ripped the Rangers defence apart at Hampden, on a day of vile weather. Davie created both goals that day in the 2-1 victory and also a hatful of chances that were not taken, making the margin of victory tighter than it should have been.

At the start of the 1985-86 season Davie had a return to form and was giving his best performances for some time. Unfortunately his health was now affected by Myalgic Encephalopathy (ME), better known as post viral fatigue syndrome. Despite a courageous effort to continue his career he had to retire in 1987 and 42,000 Celtic fans turned out on a bitterly cold night to attend his testimonial against Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest side.

Davie Provan is currently an articulate newspaper columnist and erudite match summariser on Sky Sports.

Around 2000 I attended a charity night talk show in aid of the Little Sisters of the Poor in a parish hall in Paisley, the name of which I can’t recall, at the back of St Mirren’s old ground at Love Street. Brian Dempsey organised it and had assembled an impressive array of guests. As well as Dempsey, there was Paul Cooney, Hugh Keevins, Charlie Nicholas, Gerry McNee and Davie Provan in the hall that night.

The panellists had brought various items with them to auction in the course of the evening to help raise funds.

Nicholas brought what I heard described as a ‘scabby pennant’. Provan donated his first Scotland cap from 1979 and his 1985 Scottish Cup Final jersey, the game in which he had scored such a dramatic equaliser against Dundee United. Brian Dempsey at first refused to accept them saying that they were of tremendous personal and sentimental value to Provan and that he may regret this kind act in later years.

Provan, however, was adamant stating that he had the memories which were priceless and that he was delighted they should go to help finance such a worthy cause in helping the poor of the Third World. Gerry McNee won the auction with a benevolent bid of £1000 and he now had Provan’s 1985 cup final top to go alongside his famous ‘Jimmy McGrory’ medal. The elderly Mother Superior in the hall was totally overcome with emotion, never thinking for a minute that such a vast sum of money would have been raised on the night for the Sisters’ good deeds.

It wasn’t as if Davie Provan shared the faith of the Nuns he was assisting that evening but he still gave generously. I could recall a packed Jungle many years before chanting ;

‘There’s only one Davie Provan…!’

And having witnessed his charitable deed that night in Paisley, I knew there was indeed still, only one Davie Provan.

Celtic great Davie Provan on struggling to cope when ME ended his career at 29

Winger who knows all about post-viral fatigue says Covid sufferers will need ongoing help
By Aidan Smith
Saturday, 29th August 2020, 7:30 am

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/celtic-great-davie-provan-struggling-cope-when-me-ended-his-career-29-2956359
Some good things have come out of Covid. Bluer skies, clearer waters, families round the dinner table, a deeper appreciation of the NHS and also schoolteachers. Doubtless you’ll be able to think of 
others and today Davie Provan nominates one that’s close to his heart.

“There’s a whole lot more awareness of post-viral fatigue now so maybe that’s been a by-product of the pandemic,” says the Celtic wing legend. More awareness and more money. “I believe the Government has already promised £8 million for research. This is not a fatal illness and therefore it has suffered in the past through under-funding. But we’re now seeing so many people, after they initially recover from coronavirus, being hit by post-viral fatigue and understanding and help is badly needed.”
Celtic: Get the latest team news, match previews and reports

Provan, you will remember, was struck down in his prime by ME. One minute he was flying down the right flank, socks round his ankles in trademark style, the next he was sleeping for 16 hours at a time – knackered, spent, gone. With all respect to Stuart Murdoch, leader of indie rockers Belle and Sebastian, and the novelist Ali Smith, he remains Scotland’s best-known victim of the condition, playing his part in raising awareness. “I’ve seen so many horrible cases of young people left housebound, even bedbound – lives ruined,” he says.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis is sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and, less helpfully, it was nicknamed “yuppie flu” when Provan was diagnosed during the 1985-86 season. Now 64 and Scotland’s preeminent TV match analyst, he feels for those recovering from Covid having their extreme tiredness compared with ME symptoms, and winces at recent claims that sufferers have been given conflicting and potentially harmful advice.

One set of health experts recommend a regime of physical activity to regain strength but another set warn against this. Provan and his Celtic manager David Hay were convinced his malady would pass so decided he would continue to train and play for the reserves. “It was the worst thing I could have done,” he admits.

The current confusion over how best to treat the after-effects of Covid make Provan think that little has really been learned about conditions like his, which, perhaps understandably, baffled the medical profession 35 years ago because ME seemed to come from nowhere.

“There was no science around it at that time. I remember the Celtic doctor – Fitzie, John Fitzsimons, God bless him – suggesting I knock back a couple of strong coffees in the hope that would gee me up. Eventually I was referred to Professor Dermot Kennedy at the old Ruchill Hospital who sat me down, asked for my symptoms and very quickly said: ‘You have myalgic encephalomyelitis’. I’d never heard of it but it was long and didn’t sound good. ‘Will I play again?’ I asked. He said: ‘Most unlikely’.”

Provan continues to live under the shadow of ME. “Running or anything cardiovascular is beyond me. Any kind of physical work, even gardening, and I will have a relapse. I am able to walk round a golf course now where for a long time I had to use a buggy. But I’ll have ME all my days.”

At least it hasn’t stopped him being an erudite co-commentator for Sky Sports and a punchy columnist for the Sun. He brings to both insight from a career, albeit curtailed at 29, when he was obviously paying attention. He may have fitted the bill of the classic Scottish archetype with his avowed touchline-hugging but he wasn’t that cliche, the eccentric or daft winger.

We’ll return to the shock end to the career but let’s start with the dramatic beginning. It was dramatic because, playing for Kilmarnock in a Scottish Cup fourth-round replay at Rugby Park in 1978, he terrorised the Celtic defence to such an extent that he was probably bound to end up at Parkhead to avoid him ever doing it again.

It was dramatic because Glasgow’s East End was maybe an unlikely destination, given that the Gourock boy’s family were staunch Rangers fans. Provan’s train-driver father, also Davie, took him and his brother to Ibrox where he studied the wing play of Willie Henderson. “Our street was maybe half and half but when the boys all played football together, every minute we could, there was none of the bitterness that comes from sectarianism which spoils the Old Firm rivalry now.” Provan was a winger right from those kickabouts.

“I was tapped by Celtic and it was [Jock Stein’s assistant] John Clark who phoned me: ‘Look, we know you don’t have a Celtic background but we wondered if you’d still come to us’. I didn’t hesitate. And from that moment on Dad and the rest of the family became Celtic fans. Rangers went right out of the window; they were the enemy.”

Staunch Rangers, as was, and staunch Labour, as was, for Provan would go on to break with that tradition, make up his own mind, and as he once put it, “voted for Maggie Thatcher three times”.

Today he says he doesn’t want to be drawn on politics only to explain his reasoning: “At that time higher earners were having to pay tax of 86p in the pound and the country was a basket case. When I was part-time at Killie I worked at a distillery in Paisley and saw first hand how wildcat strikes were wrecking companies. But I certainly wouldn’t vote Tory now. Not for the comedians we’ve got in Downing Street at the moment.”

Modest fellow that he is, Provan says that eye-catching performance would probably have turned out differently if Celtic, short of left-backs, had stuck the fearsome Roy Aitken there rather than John Dowie. Nevertheless that was his best game for Killie and six months later he became a £125,000 record Scottish transfer. “What some of today’s players earn in a week,” he laughs.

When we discuss hairstyles and his distinctive bubble-perm he says he thinks he sported the style before Alan Rough, Asa Hartford and Derek Johnstone went curly for the Argentina World Cup but, modest again, he wouldn’t describe himself as a trichological trailblazer. Staying with personal style I’m wondering about the authenticity of a remark from George McCluskey: “Davie always had tight jeans and loved wearing these four-inch heels.” “Absolutely true,” he says. “I was always wee so needed all the help I could get. Believe it or not I did take a stretch once, but still only reached 5ft 8ins.”

Provan wasn’t as pocket-sized as Jimmy Johnstone but nor did he possess the intimidating bulk of John Hughes. He’d been understandably apprehensive about following these two and subjecting himself to the critical rigour of the Jungle but was reassured by McNeill: “Forget about the money we’ve paid for you. I want you on the touchline always with white paint on your studs. Skin the full-backs, put over your crosses and these people will love you.” He has a lot to thank Cesar for, not least in persuading the Parkhead board to grant him a testimonial when ME brought him to a juddering halt. “Billy wasn’t a tactics-board manager, it was all inspirational stuff. He was at his best before big games, knowing exactly the right thing to say to us.”

I make the mistake, which Provan says many have done, of remembering him as speedy. A trick of the (flood-)light, perhaps, or an impression enhanced by the shirt fluttering flamboyantly outside the shorts and his rolled-down hosiery. “I wasn’t blessed with great pace and had to be a shift-and-hit wide player, rather like John Robertson. My backside would be against the touchline and I’d try to get the full-back square on to me. That would buy me the half-yard I needed to get in a cross.” By the way, the thing with the socks wasn’t an affectation. Because of his sturdy calves he always found them too tight.

His first season in the hoops would have a stunning conclusion when Ten Men Won the League. This was the heavily-immortalised 4-2 title-clinching victory over Rangers, Celtic having to play almost the entire second half without the sent-off Johnny Doyle. “Our dressing room was bedlam afterwards. Winning the European Cup couldn’t have topped the emotion of the night. And the chairman, Desmond White, when he’d quietened everyone down, said: ‘Gentlemen, this is our club’s finest achievement since Lisbon’.”

Six months later, against Belgium in the Heysel, Provan made his Scotland debut, though the previous evening hadn’t been at all sure this would happen. “We were training on an adjacent pitch, terrible surface, I shanked a cross over the crossbar and [manager] Jock Stein gave me an almighty 
bollocking.

“I was on the bench for the game and just so desperate to be out there with Joe Jordan. I’d been behind the goal at Hampden when his wonderful diving header against Czechoslovakia had sent us to the [1974] World Cup and back then the idea of me one day being in the same Scotland team was a bit of a fantasy.

“Unfortunately Joe was the guy I replaced against Belgium but it was still a great thrill. At the end one of their guys got quite angry when I wouldn’t swap shirts. For all I knew that was going to be my one and only appearance so there was no way I was giving mine up.”

Provan would collect nine more caps. He passed to Steve Archibald who then won the penalty, converted by fellow shift-and-hit merchant Robertson for the 1981 Wembley victory over England. “My only contribution of note as I had a stinker that day. That was the game where [Football Association secretary] Ted Croker tried to ban the Tartan Army only somehow, some way, a large number of them managed to get hold of tickets and they were a lovely, comforting sight when we emerged from the tunnel.”

He reckons his best game in dark blue was another World Cup qualifier, Scotland sent on their way to Spain by another towering Jordan header, this time against Sweden. “I was flying then,” he says. And in the same campaign, against Israel, he scored his only Scotland goal. “Graeme Souness slid me a square pass and was then clattered. The weight was perfect, as you’d expect, so I could allow the ball across my body and hit it first-time.” Next Friday Israel are back at Hampden in the Nations League and Provan will be on TV duty, eager to see Lyndon Dykes enjoy “the fabulous feeling and every lad’s dream” of scoring for his country for the first time.

Provan claimed four titles, two Scottish Cups and one League Cup with Celtic. His team, all of the aforementioned plus Charlie Nicholas, Murdo MacLeod and of course Danny McGrain, may not have been the greatest in the club’s history but their spirit was imperishable – in that first championship season he remembers a handful of other games won despite red cards. Arsenal wanted to sign him but John Clark cautioned: “If you leave the supporters will burn the stand down.” He had no desire to go; he was loving his football.

Best goal? “Against St Johnstone at Celtic Park in the League Cup. Charlie switched the ball to me, it arrived waist-height, 25 yards out, and I probably should have brought it down but I just smashed this volley, which started off outside the post, into the top left-hand corner of the net.

“But my most important goal was the 
free-kick in the 1985 Scottish Cup final against Dundee United. Same distance, similar swerve. I could have stood there for a whole year and not stuck that one any better.”

Provan, though, wouldn’t get that year. Six months later during an Old Firm game at Ibrox he couldn’t see properly and felt like he was wearing diving boots. “Initially there was a lot of scepticism about ME and the 
medical profession didn’t help,” he says. “It was first associated with hedge-fund managers, the guys who ran the City of London getting burned out from making all that money, and the 
yuppie flu label trivialised it.”

There was suspicion too. Were sufferers not just work-shy? “No one could have thought that about me: I had the best job in the world.” Nevertheless, Scottish football was a macho culture. “Even my own family were thinking: ‘What’s wrong with him?’

“The black irony was that I looked perfectly well so it was difficult for people to understand what I was going through.” And it was a lot. “I knew I was seriously ill. Fortunately my girlfriend Fiona, now my wife, was very understanding because the bouts of depression would last for weeks and there were times when I wondered if the darkness was ever going to lift. That’s not a good place to be, particularly when you’ve just lost your career.”

Provan, a dad-of-two, investigated every possible solution. “Faith healers, special diets, hypnotists and a fair few quacks. Nothing worked.” His profile brought bundles of letters from people with the same symptoms. “I answered every one but the most frustrating thing, when folk asked ‘How did it pass?’, was having to tell them it didn’t. I wasn’t cured and I never will be.”

When he eventually came through the worst Provan became a figurehead for the ME Association. “I remember writing to a doctor who’d claimed that ME was a by-product of depression. I told him he’s got that the wrong way round – ME is not a psychological illness. It still makes me angry when I hear it described as that. But I’ve got to be honest and say that there came a point when I had to cut the cord and stop that work. This may sound selfish but I was hearing so many dreadful stories about people who were seriously ill that it wasn’t doing me any good.”

We return to the subject of the Old Firm with the hope I can get a title prediction out of him. He didn’t like playing in the fixture. “It was always too intense. These games were only enjoyable if you were two-nil up and the ref was looking at his watch. The fear of losing was just horrendous.” He says humour was non-existent in the heat of battle although a famous jibe is attributed to him, with a bamboozled Alex MacDonald the target: “I could keep a beach ball away from you in a phone-box.” Oh, and Davie Provan (Celtic) is no relation to the late Davie Provan (Rangers) but our man adds: “I used to get his mail. Equal amounts abusive and complimentary and I think he got some of mine. We had a good laugh about that on the golf course.”

He cannot be ambivalent about this season in the long and rowdy history of the Old Firm and isn’t. “I think Celtic will win the league. There’s a resilience to them and I think Neil Lennon can trust his players. I’m not sure if Steven Gerrard can really trust his. Most weeks he seems to have his fingers crossed.”

Strikers win titles, he asserts, and while Alfredo Morelos is a “very good” one he no longer appears “committed”. But across the great divide speculation about Odsonne Edouard’s future won’t die down. “If he’s sold maybe the stand would be at risk again – and that’s a joke, by the way. But I reckon Peter Lawwell would have to think seriously about leaving the country.”