BAD BOY up in EX-FOOTBALL - Growing violent estate made me turn to drink & drugs

McLaren finds solace as cabbie, and warning kids off crime

- SALLY HIND

REFORMED football bad boy Andy McLaren has told how his tough scheme upbringing led him into a drug and alcohol spiral.

The former Dundee United star told how he hurled bricks during sword-wielding gang fights as an eight-year-old in Glasgow's Castlemilk.

He then turned to drink and drugs starting on alcohol at primary school and hitting cocaine at 17.

As his career foundered through drug use, he admitted he "wanted to die".

But the 50-year-old said he is now at his happiest, driving a taxi, focussing on his family and trying to help others through charity work.

He said: "You saw a lot of things and were a part of a lot of things, a lot of violence....

"The older you get you look back and reflect on your life and you see how stuff like that affects you.

"All through the 80s gang fighting was a big thing in Castlemilk. The younger ones would go first and then the older ones and that's when the swords and all that came out.

That's when we went home.