Profile: Pat Nevin

Pat Nevin was born in Glasgow in 1963. He started his playing career as a winger with Clyde under former Scotland manager Craig Brown. The club were promoted as Scottish Second Division champions and Nevin’s form earned him a dream move to London big guns Chelsea.

It was around this period he gained a reputation for his interest in literature and the arts, and in his predilection for bands like The Fall and Joy Division.

At Chelsea, he helped the club win promotion to the English top flight in 1983/84 as part of an exciting frontline that included fellow future Scotland international David Speedie and Kerry Dixon.

In the same season he was voted Chelsea’s player of the year and the following year the club finished sixth in the First Division. The next year the club again finished sixth in the league, despite being in contention for the title for most of the season.

However, the club was relegated in 1988 and he was sold to Everton for £925,000. He scored 20 goals in 138 appearances for the club, but struggled to re-capture his previous form. He helped the Merseysiders reach the FA Cup final in 1989, scoring the winner against Norwich City in the semi-final, but they lost 3-2 in the final to Liverpool.

Nevin returned to Scotland and played for Kilmarnock and later Motherwell before retiring as a player in 2000.

He won 28 caps for the Scottish national side, making his debut against Romania in 1986 and scored five goals in his ten-year international career.

After retiring he made a surprise move upstairs to become chief executive at Motherwell.

But it ended on a sour note as he quit in 2002 after he and manager Eric Black resigned in the wake of chairman John Boyle’s decision to put the Fir Park club into interim administration.

But he remains a familiar face and voice to fans, working as a pundit for BBC Scotland’s Sportscene, as well as for Channel Five and BBC Radio Five Live.