Born showman who made headlines On and off pitch

FORMER Huddersfield, Leicester and Bolton striker Frank Worthington was one of English football’s fabled mavericks.

Worthington, who has died at the age of 72, was a ball-juggling entertainer and lived life in the fast lane during a colourful career which spanned three decades until 1988.

Showman, playboy, Elvis wannabe and dedicated follower of fashion, Worthington was unashamedly nonestablishment and hit the headlines as much for his off-field exploits as he did for his rarefied talents on it.

Eight England caps were scant reward for a player once described by former Huddersfield and Bolton manager Ian Greaves as “the working man’s George Best”.

At all 11 of his Football League clubs, starting with Huddersfield, then Leicester, Bolton, Birmingham, Leeds, Sunderland, Southampton, Brighton, Tranmere, Preston and Stockport, fans’ favourite Worthington

became a cult hero.

Major honours eluded him, but despite a rock-and-roll lifestyle that cost him his dream move to Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in 1972, he played in 22 consecutive Football League seasons from 1966-7, scoring 266 goals in 882 appearances in all competitions.

In 14 of those seasons he played in the top flight, notching 150 goals in 466 matches, and won the Golden Boot Award in 1978-79.

Worthington won promotion to the old First Division three times with different clubs - Huddersfield, Bolton and Birmingham - and helped Preston secure promotion to the old Third Division in the twilight of his career.

He scored a career-defining goal for Bolton against Ipswich in 1979, when, with his back to goal on the edge of the penalty area, he flicked the ball up over his head to evade a clutch of defenders and swivelled to plant a volley into the bottom corner.

Former Liverpool boss Shankly was ready to break his club’s record transfer fee to sign Worthington for £150,000 in 1972, but a failed medical due to high blood pressure scuppered the deal.

Still determined to get his man, Shankly sent Worthington to Majorca for a relaxing holiday with the aim of trying again, but the 23-year-old succumbed to temptation on the island resort and continued to party instead.

He failed a second medical on his return to Anfield and later admitted in his aptly titled autobiography, One Hump or Two?, that it was the only regret of his career.

Worthington married first wife Birgitta, from Sweden, in 1973 soon after the birth of their son, Frank Jr, and their daughter Kim Malou was born in 1974.

He is also survived by second wife Carol.

> Maverick footballer Frank Worthington