Tosh McKinlay

Tosh McKinlay

Personal information
Full name	Thomas Valley McKinlay
Date of birth	3 December 1964 (1964-12-03)
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Playing position	Full-back
Youth career
1980	Celtic Boys Club
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1981–1988	Dundee	162	(8)
1988–1994	Heart of Midlothian	206	(6)
1994–1999	Celtic	90	(0)
1998	→ Stoke City (loan)	3	(0)
1999–2000	Grasshopper Club Zürich	4	(0)
2000	Kilmarnock	15	(0)
Total		495	(14)
National team
	Scotland U21	15	(0)
1995–1998	Scotland	22	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

Thomas Valley "Tosh" McKinlay (born 3 December 1964 in Glasgow) is a Scottish former international footballer. A fullback or wingback, he spent most of his career in Scotland.

Career

Tosh was an outstanding schoolboy footballer winning trophies with St Peter's Boys Primary in Partick and St Thomas Aquinas, Jordanhill, Glasgow.^{[citation needed]} As a schoolboy, Tosh 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.

Before turning professional, Tosh was an ardent Celtic fan going regularly to Celtic matches with his father on the supporters buses that left Partick from the Dolphin Pub and Smiddy Bars in Partick.

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 7 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, when the death of his infant son led him to seek a change.

In November 1994 he joined his boyhood team Celtic in a £350,000 transfer and just over 6 months later gained his first winners medal as the Glasgow side defeated Airdrie to win the 1994-95 Scottish Cup. 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 in front of an estimated 1.7 Billion worldwide TV audience. 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.

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.

External links

• Tosh McKinlay career stats at Soccerbase
• Tosh McKinlay at scottishfa.co.uk