Jim Duffy (footballer)

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James Duffy (born 27 April 1959) is a former Scottish football player and manager. During his playing career he won the Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year award.

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[edit] Playing career

Duffy was born in Glasgow, growing up in the Maryhill area of the city where he was a childhood friend of Charlie Nicholas. Like Nicholas, Duffy began his senior career with Celtic. Duffy, however, was unable to follow his friend into the Celtic first team and moved to Greenock Morton. His career developed greatly there, and in 1985 he was named Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year despite Morton being relegated.

He moved to Dundee, only for his career to apparently be ended by injury aged only 28. After a short spell as manager of Falkirk he made a playing comeback with Dundee before joining Partick Thistle. Duffy then returned to Dundee for a third spell in 1992 as player/assistant manager to Simon Stainrod. Duffy then succeeded Stainrod to become player-manager in the autumn of 1993.

[edit] Managerial career

Duffy led first division side Dundee to the Scottish League Cup Final in November 1995, but the team lost 2-0 to Aberdeen. Duffy followed this with an unsuccessful spell as manager of Hibernian. After working for Chelsea and Portsmouth as a coach he returned yet again to Dundee for a second stint as manager in 2002.

[edit] Second managerial spell at Dundee

During his second spell as manager at Dens Park he again led Dundee to Hampden, this time for the 2003 Scottish Cup Final against Rangers, which Dundee lost 1-0. As Rangers also won the Scottish Premier League, Dundee qualified for the Uefa Cup.

During November 2003 the club went into administration due to the gross financial mismanagement by the clubs owners, Peter Marr and Jimmy Marr. Going into administration meant that Dundee lost most of their talented players, but the team battled on and managed to avoid relegation that season. In the following season, however, Dundee struggled with a threadbare squad and were relegated on the last day of the season. Duffy stayed on with the blessing of the board to try and get the club back into the SPL at the first attempt. The board then strangely decided to sack Duffy after four games of the season, even though Dundee were top of the Scottish First Division.

[edit] Director of Football at Hearts

He joined the coaching staff at Hearts at the end of January 2006 and was promoted to Director of Football two weeks later on a contract until the end of the 2005-06 season. Duffy spent barely a month in that position, however, as he was dismissed by the club, along with manager Graham Rix, on March 22, 2006.

[edit] Norwich City

On February 9, 2007, Duffy was appointed the Assistant Manager to Peter Grant at Norwich.[1] When Grant left Norwich on 9 October, Duffy was made caretaker manager. But after recording losses to Bristol City, Burnley and WBA he did not win the job for a longer term. Duffy left Norwich after Glenn Roeder was appointed Norwich manager on 30 October.

On February 12, 2008, Duffy was linked with the vacant Greenock Morton managerial post by the Scottish daily newspaper The Herald. The post went to Davie Irons.

[edit] References

Achievements
Preceded by
Willie Miller
Scottish PFA Players' Player of the Year
1985
Succeeded by
Richard Gough
Languages