Malcolm Macdonald

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Malcolm Ian Macdonald (born January 7, 1950, Fulham, England) is an English footballer nicknamed "Supermac".

Born in Fulham, London, Macdonald started out as a full back before switching to centre forward. After signing from Tonbridge Angels^{[citation needed]} he played for Fulham for one season (1968-69), before moving to Luton Town. At Luton he scored 49 times in 88 matches, which caught the eye of Newcastle United manager Joe Harvey, who signed him for £180,000 in the summer of 1971. At Newcastle he quickly became a favourite of the fans, scoring a hat-trick on his home debut against Liverpool, and was the club's top scorer for five seasons in a row.

While at Newcastle, he made his debut for England (against Wales). On April 16, 1975, in a game for England against Cyprus he scored all five goals in a 5-0 victory, a record that still stands today (spawning a newspaper headline "SuperMac 5, Cyprus 0"^{[citation needed]}). In all he played 14 times for his country, scoring 6 times (the only other game he scored in being a 2-0 win over then World Champions West Germany).

Macdonald left Newcastle for Arsenal in 1976, for the slightly bizarre fee of £333,333.33, and played two full seasons (being the club's top scorer in both), but suffered a knee injury in a League Cup match against Rotherham at the start of the 1978-79 season, from which he was unable to recover. After having spent a couple of months in Sweden with Djurgårdens IF he announced his retirement from playing at the premature age of 29 in July 1979. He never won a major honour but was on the losing side in two FA Cup finals, one each for Newcastle and Arsenal.

After retirement, he returned to Fulham to manage them for four seasons, and was later manager of Huddersfield Town between 1987 and 1988. However, after being declared bankrupt after a failed business venture, and divorcing his second wife, as well as struggling with the aftermath of his injury, he became an alcoholic; he eventually gave up drinking in 1997.^[1] He has since become a radio presenter on the North East's Century FM Three Legends Football Phone In alongside Bernie Slaven .

During the TV show Superstars, MacDonald ran 100m in 10.4 seconds - on a cinder track with heavy spikes. At the time that made him the third-fastest sprinter in the UK and could have got him on the 4x100m relay team for the Montreal Olympics.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

1. ^ "Triumph and despair", Observer Sport Monthly, 2003-08-03.

[edit] External links

• Malcolm's own web site

Preceded by Bobby Campbell	Fulham F.C. Manager May 1980-1984	Succeeded by Ray Harford
Preceded by Steve Smith	Huddersfield Town F.C. manager 1987-1988	Succeeded by Eoin Hand