Damien Duff, a classy winger with two Premier League winner’s medals and 100 caps for Ireland to his name, has certainly shunned the big time as he takes his first, nervy steps in full-time football management.
Three matches into his reign as manager of League of Ireland side Shelbourne and already Damien Duff has witnessed the highs and lows.
Mixed Start to Ex-Ireland Star’s Reign
Duff had been in post three months at famous old Dublin club Shelbourne when the new season kicked off last month, beginning with a home game against St Patrick’s Athletic.
It was a tough ask against last season’s runners-up and cup winners and safe to say it didn’t go to plan. A crowd of over 4,000 had Tolka Park rocking, football royalty was patrolling the home technical area, but St Pat’s were in no way starstruck and cruised to a 3-0 win.
Hardly an auspicious start but a week later and Duff was able to celebrate a first win, 2-0 at Drogheda, and then, days later, his side chalked up a 0-0 draw at Belfield Park against UCD, a match where an errant sprinkler system provided far more entertainment than the football.
This week, unbeaten Derry City head for Drumcondra with the hosts a 43/20 shot, while mighty Derry are on offer at 6/5.
Winged Wonder Who Hit the Heights
Duff certainly brings pedigree into the League of Ireland. He is the highest-profile Irish international to manage a Premier League club since Johnny Giles was at Shamrock Rovers in the early 1980s, with a CV as a player to rival the very best.
The highlight of his seven years at Blackburn was winning the League Cup in 2001-02, while a few months later, as an already-established international, the tricky wideman was being named Ireland’s player of the finals at the World Cup in the Far East.
His greatest club achievements came at Chelsea, though, with back-to-back Premier League winner’s medals under Jose Mourinho in 2005 and 2006 before he went on to sport Newcastle and Fulham colours. He later headed home to Shamrock Rovers, where he first cut his coaching teeth with the club’s Under-15s.
Mourinho Influence on Duff the Coach
Duff, by his own admission, lacks much in the way of patience – hence a variety of coaching roles, none of which lasted too long, at Celtic, the Ireland national team and then Shelbourne Under-17s.
He certainly hadn’t planned to move up to the first team and was on holiday in France when the call came that he was the man to lead Shelbourne into the top flight following promotion under Ian Morris. He could quite easily have declined but accepted the offer and duly set about stamping his own ideas on a team heading back to the big-time after a season in the First Division.
He signed 13 players over the winter, among them young keeper Lewis Webb, who had warmed the bench at Swansea, Southampton academy graduate Aaron O’Driscoll and the injury-plagued Jordan McEneff, once dubbed the new George Best by one of his coaches at the Arsenal academy.
Having played under greats such as Mourinho, Roy Hodgson and Giovanni Trapattoni and performed at the very top for almost two decades, Duff is not short of influences and inspiration and it will be fascinating to see if one of Ireland’s most decorated stars can transform Shelbourne.
*All odds correct at time of writing.