Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Lee Wilkie
McLean visited house to hear my dad’s moans
IT seems like everybody in Dundee has their very own Jim McLean story.
After the legendary Dundee United manager’s passing on Boxing Day, now’s as good a time as any to tell mine – or maybe I should say it’s my dad’s!
I was only a tiny wee boy at the time – I was probably only four – but I can still remember the day it happened.
My dad was a week-in, weekout United supporter. He even travelled to all the European away games through the
1980s.
One day, he’d seen something he didn’t like happening on the park, and since there were no online fan forums or anything like that, he picked up a pen and wrote a letter to Jim McLean. He was having a moan, basically!
Lo and behold, a few days later, there was a knock on our front door – and there was Jim. I remember my mum taking me away into the kitchen while Jim went with my dad into the living room for a chat about the letter.
It wasn’t a quick chat, either. When my dad tells the story now, he says they were in there for a good hour, just talking about my dad’s complaint, then about football.
When you think about that now, it seems unbelievable.
Would a manager today do the same thing? There’s absolutely no chance.
For me, that story shows just how invested Jim McLean was in football – but also in Dundee United.
He cared about the club. And when fans thought he wasn’t doing his job correctly, it hurt him, because he felt he had a responsibility to them.
That’s a big part of what made him a great manager.
And there can be no argument – he was truly a great.
Sir Alex Ferguson described Jim McLean as his biggest rival in football following Jim’s death.
Never mind Jose Mourinho, never mind Arsene Wenger, never mind Rafa Benitez... Jim McLean was the man who gave Sir Alex the biggest challenge.
That says it all.
And it doesn’t surprise me at all.
I’ve spoken to plenty of guys who played under Jim at Tannadice and they all say he was so ahead of his time.
We’ve all heard the stories of how he was introducing elements of sports science into how he worked at United before sports science was even really a thing.
That came from having a first class football head on his shoulders.
He knew what it took to improve footballers.
He also knew the value of loyalty.
If there was a manager today who led United to two or three trophies in four or five years, he’d be away.
Jim McLean had chances to leave United – and they would have made him a wealthy man – but he never took them.
Now, his name is probably the first thing people think of when they think of Dundee United.
That’s entirely deserved.
And when his statue is finally unveiled, it will be an entirely fitting tribute.