Dunfermline job holds no fears for Jim Jefferies after Bradford misery

CRISIS management is nothing new for Jim Jefferies. If the assignment he accepted in west Fife last week appears daunting, he is still able to compare it favourably to the chaos he inherited in west Yorkshire more than a decade ago.

The last time Jefferies parted company with Hearts, in November 2000, his return to management came at Bradford City. They were bottom of the English Premier League when he arrived, with just one win from their first 14 games.

On the face of it, it provided him with greater time and scope to avoid relegation than the job he has just taken on at Dunfermline, bottom of the SPL at the business end of the season. But as Jefferies recalls, his ultimately ill-fated 13 months at Bradford proved to be the most thankless task of his career.

“I soon learned, and even the chairman accepted it, that everyone knew they were going down,” he said. “All of the money had been spent long before I got there on a lot of high-profile, experienced players coming to the end of their careers. My priority was to try and get through a season and clear a wage bill at the same time.

“We cleared something like £10 million off the wage bill in that first season, offloading players like Benito Carbone, Stan Collymore and Dean Saunders. I remember when I managed to move Dan Petrescu, who was 33 but had been given a four-year contract, the agent involved said Bradford owed me a ten-year contract for doing that deal alone.”

Jefferies’ reward was the sack on Christmas Eve 2001 from controversial chairman Geoffrey Richmond, who subsequently guided Bradford City in administration. “He was something else,” muses Jefferies. “I’ve worked for some crackers, right enough.”

Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov, it’s fair to assume, would fit neatly into that description as far as Jefferies is concerned. But despite a lingering bemusement at his dismissal by Hearts just three games into this season, there is no bitterness.

“I accepted Hearts’ offer [of compensation] three weeks ago,” he said. “There is no animosity with Hearts. I wasn’t shocked by what happened at Hearts, just a bit surprised at the timing.

“It doesn’t matter how well you are doing, if Mr Romanov wants to change it, he changes it. Other managers who were doing even better than me, like George Burley, know that.”