 Cascarino in 1986 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Anthony Guy Cascarino | ||
| Date of birth | (1962-09-01)1 September 1962 (age 63) | ||
| Place of birth | St Paul's Cray, England | ||
| Height | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)[1] | ||
| Position | Striker | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1980–1982 | Crockenhill | ||
| 1982–1987 | Gillingham | 219 | (78) |
| 1987–1990 | Millwall | 105 | (42) |
| 1990–1991 | Aston Villa | 43 | (11) |
| 1991–1992 | Celtic | 18 | (4) |
| 1992–1994 | Chelsea | 40 | (8) |
| 1994–1996 | Marseille | 84 | (61) |
| 1996–2000 | Nancy | 109 | (44) |
| 2000 | Red Star 93 | 2 | (0) |
| Total | 620 | (248) | |
| International career | |||
| 1985–1999[2] | Republic of Ireland | 88 | (19) |
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Anthony Guy Cascarino (born 1 September 1962) is a former professionalfootballer who played as astriker for various British and French clubs and internationally for theRepublic of Ireland national team, with whom he competed inUEFA Euro 1988 and twoWorld Cups in1990 and1994.
Since retirement, he has presented onTalksport radio and written for bothThe Times and Ireland'sHot Press magazine. He has worked for bothSky Sports in England andTV3 andToday FM in Ireland. He was a winning participant in the fourth season of theCelebrity Bainisteoir reality television series.
Cascarino was born inSt Paul's Cray,Kent, on 1 September 1962 to an Italian father and an English mother. Prior to his professional football career, he worked as a hairdresser and labourer.[3]
Cascarino joinedGillingham in 1982 fromCrockenhill, and according to Cascarino Gillingham donated tracksuits and training equipment to Crockenhill in lieu of a transfer fee.[5] He made his professional debut on 2 February 1982 in a 1–0 away league defeat toBurnley. His first goal for theKent side came in his home debut on 13 February 1982 againstWimbledon, scoring the last goal in a 6–1 win having replaced an injuredDean White as substitute. Cascarino later revealed that, having not expected to be named in the matchday squad, he had consumed a "doubleWimpey and chips and aKnickerbocker Glory" just before kick-off.[6]
While with the Kent side, he scored 110 goals in all competitions,[3] and was named in thePFA Third Division Team of the Year for three successive seasons.[7]
He went on to play forMillwall – the club he supported as a boy. Millwall had missed an opportunity to sign Cascarino as a youngster and subsequently paid the Gills £225,000 to secure his services.[8]
Cascarino signed forAston Villa for £1.1m in March 1990, then a record transfer fee for the club.[9] His time with the Birmingham club was an unhappy one, and in July 1991 he signed forCeltic for a £1.1m fee, which was also a club record. In joining Celtic, he was managed by his former agent and Ireland teammateLiam Brady.[10]
After failing to establish himself with the Glasgow side Cascarino returned to England in February 1992 to sign forChelsea in a swap deal involvingTom Boyd. Cascarino scored on his debut three days later, a 1–1 league draw at home toCrystal Palace. However, his time with the side was beset by injuries, with him registering only eight goals over 40 league appearances in two years.[11]
Cascarino signed forMarseille as a free agent in 1994. He ended as top scorer in the1994–95Ligue 2 season with 31 goals as the club won the league title but were prevented from promotion to Ligue 1 due to an ongoing investigation into financial irregularities and match-fixing scandals involving then-presidentBernard Tapie. Cascarino, nicknamed "Tony Goal" by the MarseilleUltras,[12] repeated the feat thefollowing season, scoring 30 goals as the club were promoted back toLigue 1.
In December 1996, he signed for fellow Ligue 1 sideNancy, scoring a hat-trick in his second appearance, a 1–3 away win atLe Havre.[13] The side were relegated to Ligue 2, but Cascarino would win the title and promotion in his first full season with the club the next year. Cascarino holds theLigue 1 record for oldest player to score ahat-trick, which he did while playing forNancy in a 3–0 win overStade Rennais at age 37 years and 31 days.[14][15] In May 2000 he was awarded the Medaille d'Or by the city ofNancy in recognition of his contribution to the side.[16]
Cascarino ended his career withRed Star 93 in the third tier of French football, but terminated his contract with the club in August 2000 after just two appearances. He was offered a contract to return toNancy but refused.[17]
Cascarino, who was born in England, represented theRepublic of Ireland—qualifying through his adoptive Irish grandfather, Michael O'Malley, who was fromWestport, County Mayo. He was also eligible to play for bothScotland andItaly because of his Scottish and Italian descent.[18][19][20]
He made his international debut againstSwitzerland in September 1985, duringIreland's ill-fated qualification campaign for the 1986 World Cup.[21] Cascarino would go on to feature for Ireland in three major tournaments:Euro 1988, the1990 World Cup and the1994 World Cup.[22]
His last international game came againstTurkey in late 1999, as Ireland failed to reachUEFA Euro 2000. He got into a brawl with a Turkish defender and left the pitch showing the scars of battle. This marked the end of an international career which had spanned 14 years at the highest level.[23]
In October 2000, Cascarino was the subject of national newspaper headlines when extracts from his upcoming autobiography were published in theSunday Mirror.[24] In it, he revealed that his mother told him in 1996 that she was adopted and therefore was not a blood relative to his Irish grandfather. Cascarino said in his autobiography: "I didn't qualify for Ireland. I was a fraud. A fake Irishman". The FAI's Chief Executive Bernard O'Byrne stated that he was shocked by the announcement and Cascarino's former international manager Jack Charlton questioned why he came forward with the information. Cascarino revealed that Republic of Ireland teammateAndy Townsend had advised him to keep quiet about the situation.[24]
Four days after the newspaper exclusive, in November 2000, theFootball Association of Ireland issued a short statement: "The FAI are satisfied that Tony Cascarino was always eligible to become a citizen of the Republic of Ireland and was, therefore, always eligible to play for Ireland."[25]The Irish Independent reported that Cascarino was given a 'passport of restricted validity' in 1985 and that his mother's name, Theresa O'Malley, was in fact entered in the Foreign Births Register in the Department of Foreign Affairs prior to Cascarino's international debut for the Republic of Ireland.[26][27]
Since retiring from football, Cascarino has become a semi-professionalpoker player, having appeared in the television seriesCelebrity Poker Club and commentating on thePartyPoker Poker Den. He has become something of a cult figure and was referenced in the song "All Your Kayfabe Friends" by Welsh bandLos Campesinos! where the singer tells that "You asked if I'd be anyone from history / Fact or fiction, dead or alive / I said I'd be Tony Cascarino, circa 1995."[28]
Cascarino joinedTalksport as a pundit in 2002 and presented the afternoon Drive Time show withPatrick Kinghorn between 2003 and 2005. He was involved in an on-air bust-up with Kinghorn after the latter remarked that the married Cascarino had been "chasing that 21-year-old around the office", which prompted Cascarino to lunge at Kinghorn and punch him. The pair had to be pulled apart by production staff.[29] Cascarino left the station in 2005 but soon returned as a pundit and has co-presented theWeekend Sports Breakfast since 2016.[30]
In 2011, he was a winning participant in theCelebrity Bainisteoir reality series. ManagingKilleshin GAA Club of County Laois, Cascarino's club won the season 4 competition,[31] beatingPaul Gogarty'sOughterard team after extra-time in the final.[32][33]
Cascarino entered into a relationship with his third wife, Jo, in 2009 and their son, Rocco, was born in 2015; they married inMauritius in November 2019.[34]
The twinFrance women's national football team playersDelphine andEstelle Cascarino are not related to Tony Cascarino, although they are often asked if they are:[35] "I am often asked if I am from his family, that is not the case ... I know that he notably played for Nancy and that he is Irish. Me, I'm not Irish at all! (laughs)"[36]
Cascarino produced an autobiography in 2000,Full Time: The Secret Life of Tony Cascarino,[37] which received great critical acclaim.[38]
The book detailed his love of gambling, particularly playing all forms ofpoker, and revealed that his career had been blighted by crippling self-doubt, which he summarised as the "little voice".[39]
He also revealed that during his time at Marseille, he and many other of the club's players were injected by club presidentBernard Tapie's personal physician with an unknown substance. The physiotherapist at the time insisted the substance was legal and would provide an "adrenaline boost". Cascarino said most players accepted the injections[40] and that "it definitely made a difference: I felt sharper, more energetic, hungrier for the ball". He also later admitted suffering fromdepression.
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Republic of Ireland | 1985 | 3 | 0 |
| 1988 | 7 | 3 | |
| 1989 | 8 | 2 | |
| 1990 | 11 | 1 | |
| 1991 | 6 | 3 | |
| 1992 | 3 | 1 | |
| 1993 | 8 | 1 | |
| 1994 | 6 | 1 | |
| 1995 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1996 | 7 | 2 | |
| 1997 | 10 | 5 | |
| 1998 | 3 | 0 | |
| 1999 | 9 | 0 | |
| Total | 88 | 19 | |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 22 May 1988 | Lansdowne Road,Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Poland | 2-0 | 3-1 | Friendly | [42] |
| 2 | 19 October 1988 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Tunisia | 1-0 | 4-0 | Friendly | [43] |
| 3 | 2-0 | ||||||
| 4 | 4 June 1989 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Hungary | 2-0 | 2-0 | 1990 FIFA World Cup qualification | [44] |
| 5 | 11 October 1989 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Northern Ireland | 2-0 | 3-0 | 1990 FIFA World Cup qualification | [45] |
| 6 | 14 November 1990 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  England | 1-1 | 1-1 | UEFA Euro 1992 qualification | [46] |
| 7 | 1 June 1991 | Foxboro Stadium,Foxborough, United States of America |  United States | 1-0 | 1-1 | Friendly | [47] |
| 8 | 16 October 1991 | Stadion Poznań,Poznań Poland | Poland | 3-1 | 3-3 | UEFA Euro 1992 qualification | [48] |
| 9 | 13 November 1991 | İnönü Stadium,Istanbul, Turkey |  Turkey | 2-1 | 3-1 | UEFA Euro 1992 qualification | [49] |
| 10 | 29 April 1992 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland | United States | 4-0 | 4-1 | Friendly | [50] |
| 11 | 26 May 1993 | Arena Kombëtare,Tirana, Albania |  Albania | 2-1 | 2-1 | 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification | [51] |
| 12 | 29 May 1994 | Niedersachsenstadion,Hanover, Germany |  Germany | 1-0 | 2-0 | Friendly | [52] |
| 13 | 9 October 1996 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Macedonia | 2-0 | 3-0 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [53] |
| 14 | 3-0 | ||||||
| 15 | 21 May 1997 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Liechtenstein | 4-0 | 5-0 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [54] |
| 16 | 5-0 | ||||||
| 17 | 10 September 1997 | Žalgiris Stadium,Vilnius, Lithuania |  Lithuania | 1-0 | 2-1 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [55] |
| 18 | 2-1 | ||||||
| 19 | 11 October 1997 | Lansdowne Road, Dublin, Republic of Ireland |  Romania | 1-1 | 1-1 | 1998 FIFA World Cup qualification | [56] |
Millwall
Marseille
Nancy
Individual
Republic of Ireland squads | |||||||||||||
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| International | |
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| National | |
