Having ventured from Scottish junior football to play Southern League football at Millwall, Robert McLean found himself way down the pecking-order at First Division Newcastle and duly returned to the Southern League, now with Southampton. A bustling, vigorous half-back, he had made only a few first-team appearances for the Saints when he fell foul of the club’s strict disciplinary code in March 1907. Suspended sine die for drunkenness, he duly returned to Scotland, for Second Division football, initially with Dumbarton and then at Vale of Leven, one of his former clubs who had progressed to that level.