Micky Mellon has recalled how he tried to impress Jim McLean as a young player and says he hopes to emulate the Dundee United legend as his side head for Celtic Park.
As a kid coming through in Glasgow in the 1980s, Mellon spent time training with United while a burgeoning talent at Pollok United.
In fact, the United gaffer revealed he almost graced the Tannadice turf during the reign of the club’s greatest ever manager McLean, who sadly passed away at the age of 83 on Boxing Day after a long battle with illness.
Reflecting on their paths crossing, Mellon was in a poignant mood as he reminisced about his earliest memories of professional football.
“When I was a schoolboy I used to come up to Dundee United because they had a fantastic youth policy which covered pretty much most of Scotland,” he said.
“It was the time of ‘S’ forms and you’d go round all the clubs, see who you liked and maybe sign for them back in those days.
“It wasn’t unique to myself, it was the whole of Scotland’s young players doing it at the time.
“At certain times we’d be brought up here by different scouts to come up and train.
“We’d be constantly training in Glasgow in the little satellite centres for Dundee United.
“I was about 12 and you wouldn’t be surprised to see Jim McLean walking on to the training pitch at Helenvale. That’s what happened back then.
“You wouldn’t be surprised to see that but certainly you’d be aware these managers cared about their youth policies.
“You saw that with the years Jim McLean was here and the players he brought through.
“A lot of hard work went on behind the scenes to find those players.”
Micky Mellon almost took to the pitch as a player at Tannadice
Mellon lifted the lid on how he almost had a cameo in one of United’s finest nights – the first leg of the 1984 European Cup semi-final at Tannadice.
He continued: “One of my early disappointments as a schoolboy, while playing for Pollok United, I was meant to come up and play for Dundee United before the Roma game.
“We never got to play on the pitch because the scout that was bringing us up his car broke down, believe it or not.
“His youth policy was that good that it would have touched all over Scotland anybody that was any good would’ve crossed paths with Dundee United.
“That’s what we’re trying to get back to now and we are doing – the youth set-up here is really blossoming in the way that Jim McLean would’ve worked.
“We look at that as a needed recruitment pool for us to move the club forward.”
Jim McLean an inspiration for current United crop
Mellon takes his troops to Parkhead on Wednesday to face champions Celtic – a venue the Terrors haven’t won at since McLean’s days in the dugout back in 1992.
Picking up Premiership points of any sort remain the priority for the current incumbent but Mellon admits he would love to emulate McLean’s legacy at Tannadice.
“We love everything Jim McLean did for football and Dundee United, it’s all around the club and so it should be, and we embrace it rather than be daunted by it,” he added.
“We are so proud that we are part of the next steps of the club that was built by Jim McLean. We don’t shy away from it.
“I’ve been asked if we feel we’re in the shadow of that team but I’m delighted to have the opportunity to manage such a great club.”
Asked if he’d love to be the man to guide the Tangerines to a victory in Glasgow’s East End for the first time in 28 years, he continued: “Not really because it’s not about me and I really mean that.
“I just think that we are at a stage where we’re trying to get better every day and I’m not trying to be corny.
“We try to prepare better every day and I expect to improve all the time for the players to get better.
“We’ll down there to Glasgow, give it everything we’ve got and keep trying to grow all the time and get better at everything we do.
“That’s the plan, nothing more complicated than that.
“It’s different days now, I think everybody would have to accept that going to the Old Firm with the investment that goes into their teams and all the rest of it.
“That isn’t to say that we won’t go down with the same belief and type of character that will be needed in order to go down there and fight for an important result.
After training yesterday, Manager Micky Mellon and coach Dave Bowman paid their own respects as they passed by the tributes to Jim McLean that are being placed outside Tannadice. 🧡
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— Dundee United FC (@dundeeunitedfc) December 29, 2020
“We would always do that, not just because of what’s going on at the minute, I’d expect it all the time.
“We’re going on and getting better and getting more experienced as a group.
“I think this will be the first time that many of them have been to Celtic Park – there’s maybe only two or three that have played there before so the experience will do us good.
“We’ll go down there and be well prepared to run hard and try to make sure we get the things we know we’re going to have to get right.
“We’ll see where it takes us but we go down there with belief, knowing that if we do that, we’ll give ourselves a good chance of getting a result.”