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Scott McDonald has clinched a life changing move back to Australia - ten months after he was supposed to be hanging up his boots for good.

Record Sport can reveal the former Celtic striker has returned to his homeland to sign a contract with A League new boys Western United FC - the recently formed club which failed in an audacious bid to lure Parkhead skipper Scott Brown down under earlier this year.

It’s anticipated McDonald will be officially unveiled through the night after his long haul flight from Glasgow touches down in Melbourne.

The 35-year-old announced his own retirement in an exclusive interview with the Daily Record at the start of the season but was talked into making a surprise U-turn by former Celtic team mate Gary Caldwell as the Partick Thistle boss battled against relegation from the championship.

McDonald signed on at Firhill in February and made a massive impact, scoring a total of six goals while spearheading Thistle’s unlikely survival bid.

He was on the scoresheet again on Saturday when Caldwell’s side guaranteed safety with a 3-0 final day win over Queens of the South.

Afterwards, the veteran refused to rule out the possibility of a return to the Glasgow club to head up next season’s Premiership promotion bid.

But McDonald has, instead, seized the dream opportunity to return to Australia and help his home town team establish itself in a new look top flight.

Western United FC recently won one of two new franchises for the coming season and, over the turn of the year, were locked in lengthy signing talks with McDonald’s former Celtic team mate Brown. The eight in a row skipper eventually chose to stay put at Parkhead by signing a new two year deal.

(Image: SNS)

But McDonald is now on his way to the other side of the world to clinch a fairytale final chapter to a professional career which he had called time on almost a year ago.

McDonald left Oz as a teenager to sign for Southampton in 2000 before arriving at Motherwell four years later.

He signed for boyhood heroes Celtic in 2007 just months after scoring the two goals which famously denied Martin O’Neill’s team a league title on Helicopter Sunday.

McDonald spent three years in Glasgow’s East End helping Gordon Strachan’s side to one league title and a league cup before teaming up with the same manager again at Middlesbrough.

He returned to Motherwell via Millwall in 2015 and went on to sign for Dundee United for one final season before officially announcing his retirement in August last year.