EX DEES CORNER: JIM DUFFY

Jim in his Dundee playing days.

James Duffy was born in Glasgow on April 27th 1959. He started his career with Celtic from 1979 to 1982 but never made a senior appearance. He left in 1982 and joined Greenock Morton. He made 119 appearances for the Cappielow side and scored three goals. In 1985 he was named Scottish PFA Player of the Year despite Greenock Morton being relegated. In 1985 he secured a move to Dundee where in his three years at Dens, he clocked up 83 appearances and scored two goals. In 1988 he suffered a horrific injury which was thought to end his career as a footballer. At the age of 28, Jim joined Falkirk as their manager but that only lasted until 1990 where he returned to Dens as a defender but only played 8 games before joining Partick Thistle.and he played 72 games at the Firhill club in his two year stint as a Jags player. However, Jim would return to Dens for a third spell in 1992 as a player/assistant to Simon Stainrod. He would replace Simon as player manager in the autumn of 1993. His finest spell as Dundee manager in that spell was to guide them to the Coca Cola League Cup Final in 1995 where they were defeated 2-0 by Aberdeen. He also brought now Dundee boss and legend Barry Smith to the club with Morten Weighorst going the other direction to Celtic. In his spell as player boss to 1996, he made a futher 106 appearances for the Dark Blues before opting to leave the Dens Park club to join Hibernian as their manager in 1996 before being ousted in 1998 after an unsuccessful spell at Easter Road. He would spend the next few years as a coach at Chelsea and Portsmouth before returning to Dens to take over the reins as manager from Ivano Bonetti in 2002. In his spell as manager, he guided Dundee yet again to another final, this time the Scottish Cup Final in 2003 where the Dark Blues narrowly lost to Rangers 1-0 at Hampden, courtesy of an Amoruso header. What followed was a brief sojourn into Europe through the UEFA Cup and Dundee managed to get to the First Round proper where they drew Italian Serie A side, Perugia. Duffy signed Craig Burley and Fabrizio Ravanelli through the influence of controversial laywer Giovanni Di Stefano who was a director at Dundee FC at the time. Unfortunately, Dundee went out of the UEFA Cup after a 2-1 defeat at Dens and a 3-0 defeat in Italy. A few weeks later, Dundee were placed into administration and 25 players and staff were axed. Unfortunately, Duffy could not steer Dundee to safety in season 2004/5 and were relegated to the First Division on the last day of the season, courtesy of a 2-2 draw at Livingston. A slow start to the season in the First Division ultimately saw Jim lose his job as Dundee manager and was replaced by Alan Kernaghan. Since his time at Dens, Jim has been coach at Norwich City, manager of Brechin City and now is currently boss of Third Division side Clyde and also has worked as a tv pundit for various tv channels in between.

photo (c) http://www.dundeeshrine.blogspot.com/