Sunday 21st October 2018
JIM DUFFY is Dumbarton’s new manager, and with his experience of Scottish football, there are many facts and figures to count.
Here are 10 bits of trivia about the new man in charge of Sons.
1. Jim reaches what you might call a ‘milestone age’ on Sons’ final home matchday of the regular league season. Three points at home to Stranraer that day – Saturday, April 27 – would be an ideal birthday present for him.
2. Jim has left what is now the C&G Systems Stadium as losing manager only once in eight visits. That was in April 2017 when Dumbarton beat his Morton team 1-0 with Lewis Vaughan getting the game’s solitary goal. The other seven occasions he has managed at the stadium, his team has won four times and three have ended goalless.
3. He has lost to Dumbarton on a further two occasions when his team have been at home. Sons beat his Brechin City side 1-0 by a Scott Chaplain goal in April 2010. City, though, had the last laugh, reaching the playoffs that season. In July 2015, Dumbarton beat Jim’s Morton side 3-2 at Cappielow in a Challenge Cup first round tie. In total, Jim managed Brechin and Morton to nine victories and six draws in 18 games against Sons.
4. When Dumbarton were winning promotion to the Premier Division in the 1980s, Jim was a regular opponent. He was a first team regular with Morton when they won the First Division title in 1983/84, when Sons were runners-up. The two teams went straight back down the next year, but Jim’s performances for Morton were so impressive that despite their relegation, he was Scotland’s player of the year.
5. Jim is the second oldest manager currently serving in the SPFL, with only Arbroath’s 64-year-old gaffer Dick Campbell older. John Brogan, who left Albion Rovers yesterday, is also older than Jim.
6. Jim was assistant manager to Simon Stainrod at Dundee in season 1992/93 before becoming manager in his own right the next season. The two were playing for Dundee in a Scottish Cup tie at home to Dumbarton in January 1993 when Stainrod was sent off. However, it didn’t stop the Dark Blues winning 2-0.
7. The same season, that Dundee team were one of only four to defeat Rangers in any competition, and one of only two to do so before the Ibrox side were officially champions. They did so in a 4-3 victory at Dens Park in August 1992.
8. Four years later, Jim’s Dundee side were in perilous danger of being the first team to lose to Dumbarton in over 10 months. A Stephen Dallas goal had Sons ahead at Dens Park in a League Cup tie in August 1996, but two late goals by Jim Hamilton rescued Dundee. Dumbarton were winless since beating Dundee United 1-0 in October 1995 and their wait lasted another month before beating Clyde 1-0 in September 1996.
9. For the opening months of season 2007/08, Jim worked at Norwich City alongside Ian Murray, his predecessor but one at Dumbarton and now his opposite number at Airdrie. Jim left Carrow Road with manager Peter Grant in October 2007.
10. And finally…Jim has reached the top four of what is currently League One in all three seasons there as a manager! His Brechin team, as above, made the playoffs in 2010 as well as 2009, and in 2015 he managed Morton to the title. Hopefully, come May, it will be four seasons out of four!
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Andy Galloway