The fashion and flair of football’s great maverick
hone of the great entertainers in Seventies football, he loved to say that he had ‘11 clubs or – 12 if you count Stringfellows’
When Frank Worthington arrived at Heathrow in June 1972, ready for an England Under-23 tour of eastern Europe, he wore highheeled cowboy boots, a red silk shirt, black slacks and a lime velvet jacket.
Sir Alf Ramsey, England’s understated manager, turned white. “Oh s---,” he exclaimed. “What have I f---ing done?”
This was classic Worthington, the maverick’s maverick, who has died at the age of 72. Off the field, he dressed like a peacock; on it, he played to the gallery. His personal level of performance, he once told an interviewer, “is more important to me than the team winning”.
His loss will be sadly mourned, and yet there will also be joy in reliving some of the game’s most outrageous anecdotes. Take the occasion in 1972 when Worthington nearly signed for Liverpool for what would have been a club-record fee of £150,000. Unfortunately, there was a problem at the medical: his blood pressure was too high.
According to Worthington’s racy autobiography, One Hump Or Two?, Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was still keen and told him to head to Majorca for a holiday. He was dating Miss Great Britain at the time, but he used the break to pick up a series of international admirers, including a Swedish mother-and-daughter combination. By the time he returned to Liverpool for a retest, his blood pressure was even higher.
You can see why Worthington’s attitude failed to impress Ramsey or his successor, Don Revie, two pragmatic England managers. He made only eight international appearances, even though Manchester City legend Mike Summerbee called him “the only player you could have taken from the League to Italy without him looking out of place”.
His best chances came in 1974, when Joe Mercer spent a month as caretaker manager after Ramsey’s departure. Worthington scored on his second start, a 2-2 draw against Argentina at Wembley, producing an ingenious and instinctive finish with his back to goal. A second goal beat Bulgaria 1-0 away 10 days later.
Worthington loved football for its own sake – a passion which kept him going through an extraordinary 22 seasons in the Football League. Born in Halifax, his last gig was as player-coach for Halifax Town, aged 44. And he continued to turn out for their reserves after that. In later life, when asked who he had played for, he liked to reply: “I had 11 clubs – or 12 if you count Stringfellows.”
Worthington was a supremely gifted player who scored one of the greatest juggling goals ever seen – the 1979 volley for Bolton Wanderers against Ipswich Town, which began with four delicate keepyuppy touches, outwitting the onrushing defensive line, before he buried the ball in the right-hand corner. Even the referee clapped.
But he will also be remembered as a dedicated playboy who loved to impersonate Elvis – the explanation for his flamboyant sideburns – and who took pride in his extensive list of conquests. “George Best had a reputation with the ladies,” he wrote in his autobiography, “but I had more than my fair share.”
Worthington’s Football League career lasted from 1966 to 1987, featuring 266 goals from 882 appearances. His longest association was with Leicester City, whom he represented more than 200 times, while he also appeared for Birmingham City, Leeds United, Southampton and Sunderland.
He was a hero to Gary Lineker when the pair overlapped for six months at Filbert Street, though not exactly a mentor. “I kept a suitably awed distance,” Lineker said, “in keeping with his status as a superstar and my status as, basically, the dressing-room floor cleaner.”
That memory dates from Worthington’s iconic 1970s heyday. It was the decade when, as author Rob Steen put it, “flair wore flares”. He was part of a group of half a dozen freaky footballers who looked like they had strayed off Top of the Pops. Indeed, he admitted to hankering after a musical career himself.
“In the Seventies, football became part of the pop industry,” he said. “I used to go to a lot of concerts and got to meet a lot of stars. Footballers are frustrated pop stars and pop stars are frustrated footballers.”
As with the other members of the mavericks’ group – Alan Hudson, Tony Currie, Rodney Marsh, Charlie George, Stan Bowles – Worthington’s showboating sometimes attracted flak from the stands.
For more adventurous managers, though, his creativity outweighed any perceived lack of discipline. When he signed for Southampton in 1983, Lawrie Mcmenemy told him: “I don’t care how you train, just so long as you perform for me on a Saturday.”
On the marriage front, Worthington was more frugal than one might have expected. His first wife, Brigitta, was a former Miss Sweden. They had a son and a daughter together: Frank Jnr and Kim Malou.
After their divorce in 1977, his expensive lifestyle had to be toned down a little. Within a few years, he had found his second wife, Carole Dwyer, Page Three model and daughter of Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Noel Dwyer.
This relationship endured, as will Worthington’s memory as one of the most gifted and charismatic players of his day. The sort of player who makes sport worthwhile.
in Halifax he played on the street with his two older brothers, who used to kick lumps out of him. To avoid their attacks, he learnt how to beat them with skill. And boy, was he skilful. He was big, good in the air, a real presence, but he could pass, he could dribble, his movement off the ball was so intelligent. Plus, he scored big goals at times that mattered. His club managers realised they could rely on him to deliver the goods. That was, when they could prise him off the dance floor.
Mind, he did have a reputation, Frank. There was a time when every nightclub I went into he seemed already to be there, bootlace tie, hair slicked back, another girl on his arm. But he was always up for a chat about football. You could talk to him about the game for hours. After I had retired and was living in Florida, he signed for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. There was a big headline in the local paper: “Worthington arrives today.” They gave the time his flight was due in and encouraged all the fans to go to greet him. Well, anyone turning up got quite a sight.
When he got off the plane, looking like he had enjoyed a long flight, he was carrying a bag of duty free, tripped down the steps and a bottle of scotch smashed on the runway. Welcome, Frank.
The last time I saw him was about three years ago when I did an event with him and Gary Lineker. He did his best to hide it, but you could see there was a confusion in his eyes, the effect of dementia. He was still in good spirits, but mentally he was disappearing before your eyes. It was so sad to see. Because there were not many who, when they had a ball at their feet, could lift the soul like Frank Worthington.
Were he around now, Frank would have earned 100 England caps, not the eight he got