Jim Duffy: It's a dirty job but someone has to do it

Published on Saturday 22 August 2009 20:58

THERE WAS a time when Jim Duffy did not expect to be returning to places like Easter Road unless he was decked out with earphones and a microphone.

The Brechin manager had seriously contemplated giving up that side of the game and concentrating his energies on the punditry work which has helped sustain him whenever he has been out of football employment. His dismissal while assistant manager to Peter Grant at Norwich was the latest in a long line of sickeners that had left him questioning the sanity of seeking another role in football's frontline.

"I'm being honest when I said that I didn't apply for too many jobs. I did put my CV in at Morton but when Davie (Irons] got that job, that was it. People mentioned me in connection with one or two other positions when they became vacant and I was approached by a club in League One in England but I just didn't fancy it at that time."

Perhaps this is unsurprising, with him having endured a run of employment which included helping Dundee dodge their own demise, dealing with all the administrative issues and the personal anguish of seeing people lose jobs while he held on to his. Then there was his time running interference for Graham Rix at Hearts, where he had to deal with another set of unusual behind-the-scenes issues.

"I didn't know if I wanted to get back into it all, I changed my mind from week to week depending what was happening. To be honest I don't know if it helped that when I was doing my television or radio work I would be at grounds just watching games and seeing the dog's abuse that managers take.

"It has always been that way to some extent but I think it is getting worse. People are more knee-jerk and I just thought 'I don't know if I want to go back into that'. There are a lot of unrealistic criticisms and expectations. People are so impatient and I honestly don't think that fans realise the circumstances managers have to contend with behind the scenes only to come out and be subjected to all that. It's not just at the games, it's the phone-ins on radio and in the newspapers and I just didn't think I wanted back into the game enough to put up with all that. Look at the way Jimmy Calderwood and Gordon Strachan were treated. No matter what success they had people were never going to accept them."

There was an element of that when Duffy was the occupant of the home technical area at Easter Road over a decade ago. From the moment the helicopter touched down, there were some Hibs supporters who were never willing to embrace him. That was one aspect of his time there but he insists he enjoyed it, albeit less when players such as Darren Jackson were allowed to move on, the whole value of the transaction failing to find it's way back into the manager's player kitty.

But if some of the Leith fans were not keen on him then – fewer still by the time he parted company with the club after two years – there are others who were less than impressed when he joined the club's capital rivals as part of their staff. But that hasn't diminished the appeal of returning there this week as Brechin City take on Hibs in the Co-operative Insurance League Cup.

"These are the places you want to go, the bigger grounds, playing the bigger teams. Being back in the dugout is what gets your adrenaline going but being out there in front of 10,000 instead of 500 does make a difference."

It was that adrenaline rush that eventually lured him back into the game last season. That and the fact that he was becoming a grumpy analyst. Picking out what was right and wrong with tactics but not having a say in altering them was proving too much for the coach inside him to bear.

"I realised I missed that. That's what I do. I missed the games, I missed the match build-up and decided I wanted to get back into it. It was around Christmas and New Year when there were so many games and they have a great atmosphere and it is a nostalgic time of the year and I think that all just got a grip of me. Then this job came up and although there was talk that maybe Craig Brewster would be sacked (by Inverness Caledonian Thistle] and I was being mentioned as a contender to take over from him, I wasn't comfortable with that situation, waiting for things to go wrong for someone else so I could benefit from it.

"So when this job came up I expressed an interest. It was a level down from what I had been used to but the manager had left of his own volition and it was a fresh challenge. I had asked around and it was a well-run club and that appealed as well."

But he knows it is going to be difficult to emerge from Easter Road with any kind of glory this week. "We are Second Division, they are SPL and Yogi (John Hughes] will know that the cup offers them a good chance of success and will want to get a good run early on to give the fans something to get excited about."

Duffy would get some stick if he spoiled that, but that's the kind of stick he doesn't mind.