[3] After this, he became a draftsman at the Central Marine Engine Works at Hartlepool, a port town in County Durham, England; and then at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, before returning to Glasgow as a chief draftsman with James Howden & Co.[1][2][3] In 1889, MacColl was appointed technical manager of the engineering works of Portilla, White & Co., one of Spain's largest foundries, which was located in Seville.

[1] A few months after his arrival, on 25 January 1890, MacColl, together with some of his waterworks co-workers and fellow Seville residents of British origin, attended an old café to mark the traditional Scottish celebration of Burns Night.

[2][5][6] Wasting no time, Sevilla FC began organizing several "kickabout" matches between the club's members in a close by racecourse, where MacColl and the others would set up goalposts to play 70-minute five-a-side matches on Sundays, which at the time was a non-working day, although MacColl and the others were able to persuade their bosses to give them Saturday afternoons off.

[7] In 1894, another Hugh McColl travelled to Santiago in Chile where he was a player and trainer of the city's first representative team, but this was a different man despite the similarity in name.

[5][9] During the company's early years, MacColl and Pollock were prominent members of the prestigious Wearside Golf Club, but never lost their passion for football, a sport that they promoted among their workers at Wreath Quay, where engineers, platers, and boilermakers formed different teams to compete against each other or against teams belonging to other Wearside firms.

[3] Although he ran the successful marine engine company on Wearside, MacColl perished in Glasgow, dying suddenly in the Central Station Hotel on 31 August 1915 while on holiday in his hometown.