Duncan McLean
Birthdate: 20 January 1868
Birthplace: Renton, Scotland
Other clubs: Renton Union, Renton (1888-90), Everton (1890-92), St Bernard's (1895-99)
Bought from: Everton
Signed for LFC: July 1892
International debut: 21.03.1896 vs. Wales
International caps: 2/0 - 27.03.1897
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Liverpool debut: 03.09.1892
Last appearance: 20.04.1895
Debut goal: 07.10.1893
Last goal: 28.03.1894
Contract expiry: October 1895
Win ratio: 59.76% W: 49 D: 16 L: 17
LFC league games/goals: 51 / 4
Total LFC games/goals: 82 / 4
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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.