Jim McLean

James Yuill McLean is the architect of one of the greatest achievements in Scottish football history. Winning the League with Dundee United should not have been possible. Taking United to a European Cup (now the Champions’ League) Semi-Final was incredible. Steering a club from Scotland’s fourth-largest city to the UEFA Cup Final (beating Barcelona twice along the way) should have been the stuff of comic fiction. But Jim did it.His achievements deserve recognition.This book is a picture-led record of a man with a gift for recognising talented players, improving them, and playing them in a system that made the name of Dundee United famous around the world. It contains interviews with his players and managerial peers, as well as never-before-seen photos from newspaper and magazine archives.It also contains the thoughts and family photos of Jim’s wife, Doris, who gives her insights on the unseen, private side of the man every Dundee United supporter regards as almost a deity, but who she knew as a husband.The book also looks at Jim’s playing career, his stints with Clyde, Kilmarnock and Dundee, and pictures him in the same teams as his brothers Willie and Tommy. It also has a chapter on the campaign to erect a statue to Jim, with the thoughts of the fund-raising committee, and the various stages in the creation of the statue by sculptor Alan Herriot.Perhaps most importantly, the book contains tributes from ordinary Dundee United supporters. A media campaign was launched asking supporters to email in their tributes to Jim, and these warm and often funny tributes are carried in the book.It is a celebration of a great man.