Full name Thomas Valley McKinlay Years Team Position Defender Height 1.75 m | Playing position Role Footballer Name Tosh McKinlay | |
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Date of birth (1964-12-03) 3 December 1964 (age 51) | ||
Tosh mckinlay masters 2010
Thomas Valley "Tosh" McKinlay (born 3 December 1964) is a Scottish former international footballer. A fullback or wingback, he spent most of his career in Scotland playing for Celtic, Dundee, Heart of Midlothian and Kilmarnock. He also played for English side Stoke City and Swiss side Grasshopper Club Zürich.
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Career
McKinlay was an outstanding schoolboy footballer winning trophies with St Peter's Boys Primary in Partick and St Thomas Aquinas, Jordanhill, Glasgow. As a schoolboy, McKinlay played left wing and was a regular goalscorer with a deadly left foot shot. He only moved to fullback when he turned professional and surprisingly never scored many goals as a professional. He represented Scotland at schoolboy level.
McKinlay began his professional career with Dundee, whom he joined from Celtic Boys Club in 1981. He became a first-team regular while still a teenager and spent over seven years at Dens Park before being sold to Heart of Midlothian for £300,000 in December 1988. He stayed with the Tynecastle club until 1994.
In November 1994 he joined Celtic in a £350,000 transfer and just over six months later gained his first winners medal as the Glasgow side defeated Airdrie to win the 1994–95 Scottish Cup. McKinlay provide an assist for the only goal of the final, crossing for Pierre Van Hooijdonk to head in. He won his first full Scotland cap aged 30 in 1995 against Greece and went on to earn selection for both the 1996 European Championships and the 1998 World Cup where he played in the opening game against world champions Brazil. He was a regular player for Celtic until he was displaced by Stéphane Mahé in the 1997–98 season, during which time he went on loan to Stoke City. He played three times for Stoke in 1997–98.
After leaving Celtic permanently in 1999, McKinlay spent a year in Switzerland with Grasshopper Club Zürich before returning to Scotland to finish his career with a short spell at Kilmarnock. On retiring he took up a post as an internet sports journalist with a Norwegian media company. He now works as an agent for Celtic Media.
