A footballing gypsy and a flamboyant personality on and off the pitch, Frank Worthington made Southampton his seventh League club in the summer of 1983. Frank’s stay was short, just a year, but in that time his extravagant ball skills and sublime close control were a spectator’s delight, especially as the club memorably finished runners-up in Division I and were FA Cup semi-finalists.

Although his goal per games ratio while a Saint was poor, his cunning flicks and oh-so subtle distribution were the ideal foil for his young and hungry forward counterparts, Steve Moran and Danny Wallace. Frank’s skills should surely have been rewarded with more than eight England caps, but his cavalier attitude to the game, which thrilled the terraces, did not always endear him to the authorities or the straight-laced disciplinarians in the directors’ boxes. After an eve-of-match incident in the Post House in Stoke, he never played for Saints again. McMenemy did not buy his story that he was just having a cup of tea with two female Saints fans in their room, telling told Frank his one-season Saints career had come to an end and by the way “you can make your own way home”.

The nomad resumed his travels so when he left Stockport in April 1988 he had set a record of scoring League goals in each of 21 successive seasons -a record, until overtaken by Ryan Giggs in 2011-12. The old gun slinger with the rock and roll hairstyle was loath to hang up his boots, though; he played in the over-35s World Cup which took place in South America in January 1989 and was participating in veteran matches through the 1990s as well as venturing into TV media work. He released his autobiography “One Hump or Two” in the mid-1990s and he was also, as can be imagined by the title of his book, an interesting after-dinner speaker, very much in demand until his dementia took hold. 

Frank came from a footballing family and married into another one. His father, Eric, played for Watford, while his two older brothers each had a League career – Dave mainly with Grimsby and Bob mostly at Notts County – and Dave’s son, Gary, played for five League clubs. Frank married the daughter of Noel Dwyer, the Swansea and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper. Frank passed away in March 2021, aged 72, after a long illness.