Ralph Milne

Ralph Milne (born May 13, 1961 in Dundee , † September 6, 2015 ) was a Scottish football player .

Athletic career

Milne started playing soccer at the Dundee Celtic Boys Club . In early 1976 he joined Dundee United , where he moved up to the competition team in the 1979/80 season and quickly established himself as a regular. In 1981 he reached the final of the Scottish FA Cup with the club , which was lost in the replay against the Glasgow Rangers . In November the duel was relaunched as part of the final of the Scottish League Cup , despite Milne's 1-0 opening goal in the meantime, the team again lost out due to goals from Davie Cooper and Ian Redford . In the 1981/82 UEFA Cup he also reached the quarter-finals with the team, having scored at least once as a goal scorer in each of the previous rounds against AS Monaco , Borussia Mönchengladbach and KFC Winterslag . Despite a 2-0 home win, FK Radnički Niš prevailed with a 3-0 win in Yugoslavia.

This was followed by the most successful time in Milne's career: In the 1982/83 season Milne shone as a regular goalscorer and led Dundee United to the first championship in the club's history with 16 goals this season. Also in the European Cup of National Champions in 1983/84 he was the most dangerous scorer of the Scots, who advanced to the semi-finals of the competition. In a close duel against AS Roma , Dundee United was eliminated after a 2-0 home win and a 3-0 away defeat at the Stadio Olimpico .

In the following years there was increasing tension between Milne and coach Jim McLean . Milne increasingly slipped into an alcohol addiction and the disciplinarian McLean punished every little offense rigorously. After coach Kevin Gallacher gave preference, Milne was finally sold to Charlton Athletic in the English First Division in early 1987 . After he had played in the first three rounds of the 1986/87 UEFA Cup and scored at least in the first round against RC Lens , the team reached the - ultimately lost - finals against the Swedish representative IFK Göteborg without him .

At his new club Milne was initially set and was therefore also in the team that played the final of the Full Members Cup in March 1987 . However, this was lost to the Blackburn Rovers . He increasingly moved into the second tier as the season progressed. After the team had finished the season on the relegation place , they saved the class in the play-off games against Leeds United . Milne was only used as a substitute in the first leg. In the first half of the season 1987/88 he came further only irregularly to season and was ultimately deleted from the squad by coach Lennie Lawrence .

In January 1988 Milne moved to the third- tier third division at Bristol City . Here he missed promotion to the second division in the play-offs at the end of the season , but had again attracted higher class attention with good performances. In November 1988, his Scottish compatriot Alex Ferguson steered him to Manchester United after the club had slipped into the bottom third of the table after a series of nine games without a win. By the end of the season he played 22 championship games and scored three goals, but it was only enough for eleventh place in the table. In the summer of 1989, Manchester United signed Danny Wallace, a new player on the left wing, who, together with youngster Lee Sharpe , pushed him out of the squad. After he was only able to book one league assignment as a substitute in the first half of the 1989/90 season, the club therefore loaned him to the second division West Ham United from January for the rest of the season . Here he ran again in the League Cup before an injury meant the premature end of the season.

After returning to Manchester United, Milne was put on the reserve team. There, however, he was particularly noticeable because of his alcohol problem, as he missed training and games. After his contract ended in the summer of 1991, he did not find a club before he played for Sing Tao SC in the Hong Kong First Division League for a year. He then returned to the UK, but ended his career when he couldn't find a new employer.

In 2009, Milne was inducted into the Dundee United Hall of Fame . In the summer of 2015, at the age of 54, he succumbed to an alcohol-related liver disease .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ barryhugmansfootballers.com: Profile Ralph Milne , accessed June 25, 2020
2. ↑ "Our Ralph Milne"
3. ↑ "Dundee United legend Ralph Milne has met an untimely and tragic demise but his iconic legacy will live on forever"