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Personal

Fullname: Mark Burchill
Height: 5.08
Weight: 11.09
Born: 18 Aug 1980
Birthplace: Broxburn
Signed: 3 June 1997
Left: 24 Aug 2001
Position: Forward
Debut:
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 6 caps
Internationals Goals: 0 goals

Trivia

• Fastest hat-trick in European Club football - Mark Burchill v Jeunesse Esch of Luxembourg in 2000.

Biog

Once touted as 'the next big thing' striker Mark Burchill was the product of Celtic Boys Club.

Born in August 1980 he joined the senior ranks at Parkhead in 1997 and made his first team debut in season 1998-99 when netted 8 times in just 19 appearances, the vast majority of which were from the bench. The most memorable of these goals was the final score in Celtic's 5-1 rout of Rangers on November 21st 1998.

• Burchill was signed almost by accident. Willie McStay tells the story of how this came about. He was asked to go to Strathclyde Park to look at a couple of Under-14's playing against Dundee Utd - Lawrence Haggart (tragically murdered) and Jamie Smith. These latter two impressed enough to be offered S-Form papers but it was a small nippy forward that caught McStay's eye. Burchill became one of McStay's first signings to the Youth programme and the first to brealk into the First Team squad and win a debut.
  

Possessing an awesome turn of pace he was undoubtedly an exciting prospect and his speed and tender years saw the more excitable members of the Scottish media christian him 'Scotland's Michael Owen'. According to the press at that time Arsenal were leading a host of top English clubs keen to lure the promising Burchill down south.

Prone to niggling injuries and faced with competiton from Mark Viduka and Henrik Larsson, Burchill however could not command a regular starting slot and after such a glittering start to his career the Broxburn-born star faded from the limelight almost as quickly as he had burst onto the scene.

His appearances in the Hoops became more fleeting and unconvincing and Burchill was becoming clearly frustrated and unsettled at his lack of opportunites. Keen to taste regular first team football Burchill made it be known that he was no longer happy to warm the Parkhead bench and wait for his chance, especially when in the summer of 2000 new Bhoys boss Martin O'Neill splashed out a club record £6 million on Chelsea's Chris Sutton.

From that moment his exit seemed inevitable but before he departed Burchill produced a final swansong in the Hoops with a hat-trick in just four minutes as Celtic demolished Luxembourg no-hopers Jeunesse Esch 7-0 at Parkhead in a UEFA Cup tie on August 24 2000.

The next month he was off to Birmingham on loan and, after a brief spell at Ipswich, the following summer the man once believed to be the hottest prospect in Scottish football made a £600k-900k move to Portsmouth. It was sad to see, we'd hope so much from him and in fairness he'd done as well as he could. That we can respect.

Post Celtic Career:

On 24/8/01 he moved to Portsmouth for £900k winning a 5 year contract but suffered a serious cruciate injury which kept him out of the game for some time. He returned with loan spells at Dundee, Wigan, Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham before returning to Scotland for a loan period with Hearts from January to the end of the season in 2005. Hearts were unwilling to offer him a permanent contract and on 6/7/05 he joined Dunfermiline where was an important part of the team. This was followed again by further moves.

We wish him the best for the rest of his career.

Playing Career

	League	Scottish Cup	League Cup	European	Total
Appearances	17 (33)	1 (2)	3 (2)	4 (1)	25 (38)
Goals	20	1	0	3	24

Club	From	To	Fee	League		Scottish/FA Cup		League cup		Other
Rotherham	12/06/2008		Free	8 (10)	4	0 (1)	0	0 (1)	0	0 (2)	0
Dunfermline	06/07/2005	12/06/2008	Free	64 (20)	23	3 (2)	0	4 (0)	3	4 (2)	4
Hearts	28/01/2005	06/07/2005	Free	5 (7)	3	2 (2)	0	0 (1)	1	0 (0)	0
Rotherham	24/09/2004	24/10/2004	Loan	3 (0)	1	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Sheff Wed	24/12/2003	24/01/2004	Loan	4 (1)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Wigan	21/08/2003	21/09/2003	Loan	1 (3)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Dundee	31/01/2003	01/06/2003	Loan	7 (4)	2	1 (3)	1	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Portsmouth	24/08/2001	28/01/2005	£ 900,000	9 (15)	8	0 (0)	0	1 (1)	0	0 (0)	0
Ipswich	20/02/2001	20/05/2001	Loan	2 (5)	1	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0	0 (0)	0
Birmingham	22/09/2000	22/12/2000	Loan	4 (9)	4	0 (0)	0	3 (1)	1	0 (0)	0
Celtic	03/06/1997	24/08/2001	Youth	17 (33)	20	1 (2)	1	3 (2)	0	4 (1)	3
Totals			£900,000	124 (107)	66	7 (10)	2	11 (6)	5	8 (5)	7
			goals / game	0.28		0.11		0.29		0.53
				Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals

Honours with Celtic

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