Billy McLaren
Billy McLaren (born 7 June 1948 in Glasgow) is a Scottish former association football player and manager.
Player
McLaren was well-travelled as a player, serving eight different Scottish league clubs. His longest service was to Dumfries club, Queen of the South. In a subsequent interview, team mate Jocky Dempster named McLaren in what he felt was the eleven best players at the club in the 1970s.[1] Iain McChesney was another to name McLaren in the best players at Palmerston Park at the time.[1]
He helped Hibernian gain promotion back to the Scottish Premier Division in 1981 after signing for the club in December 1980.[2] McLaren trained with Hibs part-time while retaining a job as a civil servant.[2]
His last club was Partick Thistle, where manager Benny Rooney had intended McLaren to coach, but he was pressed into service due to injuries to other players.[3]
Management
McLaren managed both Queen of the South and Albion Rovers in two different spells, resigning from the Albion job to retake the Queen of the South job in 1993.[4] McChesney was among his back room staff in both managerial spells at Queens. It was in McLaren's first spell at Queens that he signed the teenage Andy Thomson.[5]
He was Stranraer manager during the 2002–03 season, when the club began a remarkable run of being either promoted or relegated every season.[6] This brought an unsuccessful end to a spell during which he had won manager of the month awards in December 1999[7] and October 2002.[8] The club had pushed for promotion in the 2000–01 season[9] and reached the quarter-final stage of the Scottish Cup for the first time in their history, in the 2002–03 season.[10]
McLaren is currently employed as a youth scout for Rangers.[11]
References
- Jeffrey, Jim (2005). The Men Who Made Hibernian F.C. since 1946. Tempus Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7524-3091-2.
External links