Celtic legend Frank McGarvey felt ‘palmed off’ by doctors before…

A Scottish football great felt “palmed off” by doctors before he was given a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis, his daughter has said.

Former Celtic and Scotland striker Frank McGarvey died in January at the age of 66, after being diagnosed in October 2022.

His daughter Jenny Kane, 36, told the Herald newspaper the footballing ace was told by GPs he had indigestion before being tested for bacteria that can cause gastric ulcers.

His first symptoms included chest pain in spring 2022, before the pain spread to his back and he lost his appetite and began losing weight.

Mrs Kane told the newspaper: “I felt like we were just getting palmed off.

“They were not taking any of this seriously until it came to the summer, by which time I was ferociously emailing the doctors week after week to say, ‘look, someone has to take this seriously’.

“By that time my dad had lost two stones in the space of two months – surely that’s not indigestion?”

Two months before his diagnosis, McGarvey was taken to A&E with chest pains, where X-rays showed signs of inflammation on his sternum – but he was given the all-clear.

“I sat there and watched the doctor tell him there was nothing wrong with him – ‘you’re fit as a fiddle, Frank’,” she said.

“Yet he was coming to my door every week skinnier and skinnier, not eating, weak, with this constant pain in his chest, and painkillers weren’t doing anything.”

Pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of around 7% – the lowest of all common cancers.

Symptoms include indigestion, jaundice, upper abdominal pain, stool changes, loss of appetite and unexplained weight loss.

McGarvey, who signed for Celtic in 1980, scored 100 goals in 168 appearances, and also turned out for teams including St Mirren, Queen of the South and Clyde.

He was capped by the national team seven times.