Profile

Strongly-built McLean played at left-back in Liverpool's first-ever Football League fixture in September 1893. He scored 6 goals, a high total for a full-back but not too surprising as he was the club's penalty-taker during that inaugural League season. McLean was always a regular in the first team during his distinguished Liverpool career.

McLean's adventurous play seemed though to displease the Liverpool directors on account of these programme notes for a Cliftonville game in April 1893: "Why will McLean persist in marring his really brilliant and effective play by getting too far away from his own goal? By all means back up the halves, but a full-back has no business whatever amongst the forwards, except on the defensive. If Mac will get rid of this one fault he will be as good a back as there is in England today."

Liverpool struggled right from the start in their first top division season (1894-95), winning just one of their first 17 league matches, and were not surprisingly relegated back to the Second Division. This proved to be McLean's final season for the club and he joined Scottish cup winners Edinburgh St Bernard's, skippering the side and finally gaining international recognition, probably made easier by the fact that he was playing now on the "right side" of the border.

Other Clubs:
Renton Union, Renton, Everton, Edinburgh St Bernard's