Born: 20 January 1868

Born in: Renton

Died: 17 November 1941

Other clubs: Renton Union, Renton (1888-90), Everton (1890-92), St Bernard's (1895-98)

Signed from: Everton

Joined Liverpool: July 1892

Debut: 03 Sep 1892

Final appearance: 20 Apr 1895

Debut goal: 07 Oct 1893

Last goal: 28 Mar 1894

Contract until: 04.10.1895

Honours: Lancashire league 1892/93; Second Division 1893/94

League: Apps / Goals: 51 / 4

All Competitions: Apps / Goals: 82 / 4

Player Profile

In 1890 McLean left the famed Scottish amateurs Renton rejoining his former captain Andrew Hannah at Everton in the professional English League. A year later he won the League Championship but followed former Everton President, John Houlding, out of the club in 1892, to join Houlding's new outfit, Liverpool. Strongly-built McLean was 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 in 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 St Bernard's from Edinburgh, 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.