Ted MacDougall Profile

Ed­ward John Mac­Dou­gall, born In­verness, Scot­land, Jan­uary 8, 1947. Ted Mac­Dou­gall was on the books of Liver­pool, York City, and Bourne­mouth and Bos­combe Ath­let­ic be­fore he was bought by Man­chester Uni­ted head coach Frank O´Farrell for a trans­fer fee of 200,000 pounds in Septem­ber 1972. 

Born and grow­ing up in the Scot­tish High­land to­wn of In­verness, Ted Mac­Dou­gall star­ted his play­ing ca­reer as a train­ee wi­th Liver­pool at the age of 17 be­fore the some­what rest­less young­ster made a move to lowly Fourth Di­vi­sion club York City where he qui­ckly be­came an auto­mat­ic se­lec­tion. Af­ter con­trib­ut­ing an amaz­ing 34 hits in 84 out­ings for The Min­ster­men, he was sold to Third Di­vi­sion Bourne­mouth and Bos­combe for a com­par­at­ively mod­est trans­fer fee of £10,000 in the sum­mer of 1969. Af­ter set­tling down in Bourne­mouth, the at­tack­ing spear­head con­tin­ued his good goal scor­ing form un­der fir­st Fred­die Cox, and then ex-West Ham Uni­ted and Torquay Uni­ted de­fender John Bond, and he right­fully made the head­lines of all the na­tion­al news­pa­pers when he notched up a re­cord break­ing nine goals for the high-rid­ing So­uth Coast­ers in a stag­ger­ing 11-0 FA Cup Fir­st Ro­und tri­umph ag­ainst the Non-Lea­gue min­nows of Mar­gate at Dean Court on the 20th of Nov­ember 1971. Whi­le wi­th Bourne­mouth and Bos­combe Ath­let­ic, Mac­Dou­gall would be­come some­thing of a liv­ing foot­balling le­gend in the eyes of the suc­cess starving Dean Court sup­port­ers and the pop­u­lar crowd puller ac­cel­er­ated his goal plun­der­ing ca­reer fur­ther when he ma­naged to de­vel­op a dy­nam­ic and in­nov­at­ive strik­ing part­ner­ship wi­th for­mer Bootham Cres­cent team­mate Phil Boy­er which al­most help­ed The Cher­ries to clinch pro­mo­tion to the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion in 1971-72. The Dor­set out­fit were ser­i­ously in­volved in the race for pro­mo­tion for vir­tu­ally the who­le of the sea­son, but in the end Bond´s gif­ted te­am were frus­trat­ingly pipped at the post by fel­low So­uth Coast club Brighton and Hove Al­bion who ended the cam­paign as run­ners-up to even­tu­al Third Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­ons As­ton Vil­la. Mac­Dou­gall, for his part, fin­ished the sea­son as top scor­er in the Foot­ball Lea­gue wi­th a stun­ning 35 goals to his name and was now on the radar of a string of lead­ing clubs.

Greatly im­pressed by the Bourne­mouth for­ward, Man­chester Uni­ted gaf­fer Frank O´Farrell ev­entually bro­ught the then twenty-five-year-old play­er to Old Traf­ford for a trans­fer fee of £200,000 at the front end of the dif­fi­cult 1972-73 cam­paign. A num­ber of can­did­ates had be­en closely linked wi­th Uni­ted, but in the end O´Farrell had op­ted for the Dean Court ace who had notched up 103 Foot­ball Lea­gue goals in 146 out­ings for Bos­combe. Eager to make a de­cent fir­st im­pres­sion, Mac­Dou­gall ma­naged to find the net on his de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted in a 1-0 vic­tory at ho­me to Fir­st Di­vi­sion new­comers Birm­ing­ham City on the 14th of Oct­ober 1972, and he fol­lowed up by scor­ing the sec­ond goal in a 2-0 ho­me win ag­ainst title chasers Liver­pool four weeks la­ter. Fol­low­ing the re­tire­ment of le­gendary Man­chester Uni­ted su­premo Sir Matt Busby, O´Farrell had be­en offered the po­s­i­tion as the man­ager of the club by chair­man Louis Ed­wards at the start of the 1971-72 sea­son, and the ex­per­i­enced Ir­ish­man, who was nev­er the one to back out of a ma­jor chal­lenge, ac­cep­ted the post im­me­di­ately, des­pite the over­whelm­ing task of turn­ing the sink­ing Man­chester re­gistered ship ar­ound. Af­ter a weak be­gin­ning to the 1972-73 term, tho­ugh, the pre­vi­ous Lei­cester City boss was des­per­ate for more fire­power to bol­ster his age­ing si­de of star play­ers. But al­though Man­chester Uni­ted, who had won the coveted Euro­pean Cup on­ly four years earli­er, were fight­ing re­leg­a­tion early on in the cam­paign, O´Farrell´s new­ly con­struc­ted Uni­ted si­de fi­nally star­ted to get their act to­geth­er af­ter a poor start, and as the Foot­ball Lea­gue sea­son pro­gressed, the red shir­ted men im­proved their play­ing form slightly, and there was an air of an­ti­cip­a­tion as the ho­me play­ers took the field ag­ainst Bill Shankly´s Liver­pool at Old Traf­ford in the 11th of November.

In front of a bois­ter­ous audi­ence of more than 54,000 spec­tat­ors, Mac­Dou­gall set up Ron­ald “Wyn” Dav­ies, a £60,000 ac­quis­i­tion from Man­chester City, for the fir­st goal of the tie, and the for­mer Bourne­mouth fa­vour­ite then pro­ceeded to pro­duce the sec­ond goal of the af­ter­noon him­self to make the score 2-0 in fa­vour of Man­chester Uni­ted. Ex-Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Bob­by Charl­ton also en­joyed an ex­cel­lent ga­me for The Man­chester Reds as the ever­green vet­er­an com­pletely dom­in­ated the battle in the middle of the park through­out the who­le of the mat­ch. Liver­pool tried hard to res­cue a point, but the ho­me si­de held firm to col­lect a well de­served 2-0 ho­me win ag­ainst the Mer­sey­siders. Mac­Dou­gall nev­er­the­less failed to live up to his ob­vi­ous po­ten­tial at Man­chester Uni­ted and fol­low­ing the ap­point­ment of Tom­my Doc­herty as the new man­ager of the once mighty foot­ball club in Dec­ember 1972, his days at Old Traf­ford were ef­fect­ively numb­ered. And as events turned out, he was trans­ferred to fel­low Di­vi­sion One te­am West Ham Uni­ted for a fee of £130,000 at the back end of the 1972-73 sea­son af­ter hav­ing sco­red on­ly a mere five goals in 18 Fir­st Di­vi­sion mat­ches for Man­chester Uni­ted. The Scot made his fir­st Di­vi­sion One ap­pear­ance for West Ham in a 0-0 draw away to Shef­field Uni­ted on the 10th of Mar­ch 1973 and re­cor­ded his fir­st top-flight goal for The Ham­mers in a 2-1 win at ho­me to Man­chester City a week la­ter, but un­for­tu­nately he also failed to make it at Up­ton Park. Fol­low­ing a 4-1 loss to Fir­st Di­vi­sion lead­ers Leeds Uni­ted at El­land Road on the 3rd of Nov­ember 1973, he had a full-on fight wi­th team­mate Billy Bonds in the dress­ing room bath and sub­sequently mo­ved on to Nor­wich City, ma­naged by Ron Saun­ders re­place­ment John Bond, for a fee of £145,000 shortly be­fore Christ­mas 1973. MacDougall´s spells at Man­chester Uni­ted and West Ham Uni­ted may very well have be­en dis­ap­point­ingly un­suc­cess­ful, but he would en­joy a pro­duct­ive time at Car­row Road where he once ag­ain linked up wi­th Boyer.

Nor­wich City, head coach­ed by Saun­ders at the time, had gain­ed pro­mo­tion to Lea­gue Di­vi­sion One for the fir­st time in their his­tory by win­ning the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion in 1971-72 and had on­ly just avoided re­leg­a­tion the next cam­paign. Nor­wich con­tin­ued to struggle the fol­low­ing sea­son and Saun­ders had be­en re­placed by Bond af­ter a 3-1 de­feat to Ever­ton at Car­row Road on the 17th of Nov­ember 1973. Mac­Dou­gall re­ceived his Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but for Nor­wich in a 1-0 loss ag­ainst Burn­ley at Turf Moor on the 8th of the fol­low­ing month and clocked up his fir­st goal for The Ca­nar­ies in a 2-1 de­feat to East Anglia rivals Ips­wich To­wn at Car­row Road on Box­ing Day. His next goal came in a 1-1 ho­me draw wi­th Man­chester City on the 29th of Dec­ember and he fol­lowed up by net­ting a brace in 4-2 de­feat ag­ainst his for­mer si­de West Ham Uni­ted at Boleyn Gro­und on New Year´s Day. He then sco­red the open­ing goal for Nor­wich in a 1-1 draw at ho­me to Wolver­hampton Wan­derers on the 19th of Jan­uary and hit the win­ner in a 2-1 ho­me win over Shef­field Uni­ted on the 9th of Feb­ruary. Mac­Dou­gall kept up his good goal scor­ing form and grabbed one of the goals in a 2-2 draw at ho­me ag­ainst Chel­sea on the 9th of Mar­ch and bag­ged the open­er in a 4-0 ho­me vic­tory over Sto­ke City two weeks la­ter. As the 1973-74 cam­paign kept go­ing on, he net­ted a con­sol­a­tion for City in a 4-1 de­feat ag­ainst Ever­ton at Good­ison Park on the 13th of April and fou­nd the net ag­ain in a 1-1 ho­me draw to New­castle Uni­ted on the 17th of the same month be­fore scor­ing the win­ning goal in a nar­row 1-0 tri­umph at ho­me to Burn­ley three days la­ter. But des­pite notch­ing up el­ev­en goals in 22 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for City, his new club fou­nd them­selves re­leg­ated to the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion at the end of the sea­son along­side South­ampton and Man­chester United.

Wi­th re­newed back­ing from the Board of Dir­ect­ors, Bond set out to re­store pride and bring Nor­wich City back to Di­vi­sion One at the fir­st at­tempt. Con­tinu­ing his mag­ni­fi­cent net-find­ing form of the lat­ter part of the pre­vi­ous sea­son, Mac­Dou­gall re­gistered a sec­ond-ha­lf win­ner in a 2-1 suc­cess ag­ainst Black­pool at Car­row Road on the open­ing Sat­urday of the 1974-75 cam­paign, in a mat­ch which gave City sup­port­ers a glimpse of things to come. He main­tained his scor­ing pace and grabbed one of the goals in a 3-0 vic­tory at ho­me to Jim­my Sirrel´s Notts Coun­ty on the 14th of Septem­ber and then bag­ged him­self a brace, in­clud­ing a pen­alty, in a 2-0 ho­me win over ta­ble-top­ping Man­chester Uni­ted a fort­night la­ter. He con­ver­ted an­oth­er pen­alty in a 2-0 tri­umph ag­ainst Mill­wall at Car­row Road on the 5th of Oct­ober and he also net­ted from the spot in a dom­in­ant 3-0 vic­tory over Ori­ent at Bris­bane Road on the 26th of the same month. He kept on scor­ing at a pro­lif­ic rate and fin­ished the sea­son hav­ing hit 17 goals, in­clud­ing six pen­al­ties, in 42 Di­vi­sion Two ga­mes as Nor­wich clin­ched pro­mo­tion to the Fir­st Di­vi­sion. The East Angli­ans also rea­ched the Lea­gue Cup Fi­nal, where they suf­fered a clo­se 1-0 loss ag­ainst fel­low pro­mo­tion con­tenders As­ton Vil­la wi­th Saun­ders at the helm.

Mac­Dou­gall rel­ished be­ing back in the Fir­st Di­vi­sion and opened his scor­ing ac­count for the 1975-76 cam­paign wi­th a tre­ble, in­clud­ing a pen­alty, in a 5-3 re­venge win over As­ton Vil­la at Car­row Road on the 23rd of Au­gust. A week la­ter, he sco­red Norwich´s sec­ond goal in a 2-2 draw wi­th Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur in front of an alarm­ingly small crowd of 23,000 at White Hart Lane and then went on to net his sec­ond hat-trick in a fort­night as City ran out 4-2 win­ners ag­ainst Ever­ton at Car­row Road. On the 13th of Septem­ber, he pro­duced a brace, in­clud­ing a pen­alty, as Nor­wich ma­naged to earn an en­ter­tain­ing 4-4 draw ag­ainst Burn­ley at Turf Moor. Pe­ter Noble fired Burn­ley in­to an early 1-0 lead with­in the fir­st min­ute be­fore the for­mer Swin­don To­wn man ad­ded a sec­ond goal from the pen­alty spot in the 26th min­ute to make it 2-0 to the hosts. Mac­Dou­gall re­duced the ar­rears for Nor­wich wi­th a spot-kick shortly af­ter­wards, but Noble sco­red a sec­ond pen­alty goal for The Clarets in the 43rd min­ute to give them a 3-1 lead at the break. Wi­th some twenty min­utes left on the clock, Mac­Dou­gall ma­naged to pull one back for City and mo­ments la­ter ex-Tot­ten­ham mid­fielder Mar­tin Peters lev­elled the score to make it 3-3. Then, as time ticked down to zero, the ir­re­press­ible Noble notched his fourth goal of the con­test wi­th an un­stoppable head­er to put Burn­ley in the driv­ing seat ag­ain, on­ly for Boy­er to equal­ise for Nor­wich as he head­ed ho­me in the dy­ing sec­onds of the fix­ture. “Su­per Mac” hit an­oth­er double, in­clud­ing a con­ver­ted pen­alty, in a work­man­like 2-0 vic­tory over Lei­cester City at Car­row Road sev­en days la­ter and then re­gistered the win­ner in a pro­fes­sion­al 1-0 win ag­ainst bot­tom-of-the-ta­ble Shef­field Uni­ted at Bramall Lane the fol­low­ing week. Mac­Dou­gall car­ried on find­ing the back of the net and totalled 23 Fir­st Di­vi­sion goals, in­clud­ing four from the pen­alty spot, in 42 out­ings dur­ing a sea­son that ended wi­th Nor­wich tenth in the table.

The foot­balling jour­ney­man then tried out his luck at am­bi­tious Sec­ond Di­vi­sion out­fit South­ampton whom he joi­ned for a bar­gain trans­fer fee of £50,000 at the front end of the 1976-77 cam­paign. Dur­ing his time at The Dell, Mac­Dou­gall would te­am up wi­th no­ne oth­er than Boy­er, who was also bro­ught in from Nor­wich City, and the in­ex­tric­ably linked duo as­sisted the So­uth Coast si­de to clinch pro­mo­tion back to the Fir­st Di­vi­sion in 1977-78 fol­low­ing a four-year stay in Di­vi­sion Two. Af­ter a short loan spell wi­th South­ern Foot­ball Lea­gue club Wey­mouth, his ser­vices were re­mark­ably deemed sur­plus to re­quire­ments by South­ampton man­ager Law­rie Mc­Menemy partly in­to the 1978-79 sea­son and he left So­ton for a sec­ond spell at Bourne­mouth, now head coach­ed by his ex-team­mate John Ben­son at Dean Court and Car­row Road, on a free trans­fer in Nov­ember 1978 fol­low­ing 42 goals in 86 Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Saints. The Scot­tish bread and but­ter stri­ker would la­ter ap­pear for a num­ber of te­ams ar­ound the coun­try, in­clud­ing Third Di­vi­sion Black­pool and Non-Lea­gue out­fits Salis­bury City and Poole To­wn. The much trav­elled play­er also had spells in Aus­tralia, North Amer­ica, and So­uth Africa be­fore he de­cided to end his goal poach­ing ca­reer in 1984, at the age of 37.

A seni­or in­ter­na­tion­al for Scot­land, Ted Mac­Dou­gall played sev­en times for the coun­try of his bir­th af­ter be­ing giv­en his full de­but for the coun­try of his bir­th by for­mer St John­stone su­premo Wil­lie Or­mond in a 1-1 friendly fix­ture draw wi­th Swe­den at the Ullevi Sta­dium in Gothen­burg on the 16th of April 1975, pro­du­cing the equal­ising goal wi­th less than five min­utes re­maining of nor­mal time af­ter the Swedes ini­tially had taken the lead thanks to Tho­mas Sjoberg who fou­nd the net a min­ute be­fore the ha­lf-time break. Wi­th sev­er­al tal­en­ted play­ers knock­ing on the door, his fi­nal in­ter­na­tion­al ap­pear­ance came in a 1-1 Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship Quali­fier draw to Ro­mania at Hamp­den Park on the 17th of Dec­ember the same year. Ted Mac­Dou­gall Play­ing Ca­reer: Liver­pool, York City, AFC Bourne­mouth, Man­chester Uni­ted, West Ham Uni­ted, Nor­wich City, Jew­ish Guild, South­ampton, Wey­mouth, AFC Bourne­mouth, De­troit Ex­press, Black­pool, Salis­bury, Poole To­wn, Tot­ton, Gos­port Bor­ough, Floreat Athena, St Ge­orge-Bud­apest, Tot­ton, An­dover. Play­ing Hon­ours: None.

Ted MacDougall Quickfacts

Af­ter his re­tire­ment from the ga­me of foot­ball, Ted Mac­Dou­gall ran a pub­lic house in Dun­bridge in Hamp­shire in ad­di­tion to his two sports shops in Bourne­mouth and Poole in Dor­set. He was linked wi­th a takeover bid for his old club AFC Bourne­mouth in 1994, but noth­ing ma­ter­i­al­ised at the end of the day.

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