Full steam ahead

Jim Duffy brings humour, respect, honest hard work and his own opinions to fulfil his new position as Hearts’ director of football, writes Michael Grant

IN his programme notes for last weekend’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup tie against Partick Thistle, the Hearts head coach, Graham Rix, made a joke about how deserted it would be on the training pitch when the club’s legions of international players left to represent their countries. “When everyone has gone it will be me, Duff, John McGlynn and Valdas Ivanauskas coaching each other,” he wrote.

It was a throwaway gag which was supposed to emphasise how empty the place would feel, although it also served to underline the fact that Hearts need four coaches for their senior squad. A club which has used 38 players this season ahead of today’s SPL match at Livingston can be forgiven for requiring more coaches than most, yet the sense of being a little top-heavy in that department is inescapable. It amounts to another intriguing aspect of how Vladimir Romanov chooses to run his club.

In January he appointed “Duff” – Jim Duffy – as director of football. That decision seemed to be taken with typical Romanov impulsiveness. He had called Duffy to meet him on a Saturday evening after Hearts had lost 2-1 to Aberdeen and a delegation of players had sought reassurances that he would not attempt to interfere with Rix’s autonomy on picking the team. But it was only three-quarters of the way through a wide-ranging discussion with Duffy that the director of football role was mentioned for the first time. Had Romanov intended to offer him the job all along, or did the thought suddenly occur to him as he began to like what Duffy was saying?

At the club’s Riccarton training academy on Friday, when he spoke at length about his appointment for the first time since arriving on January 31, Duffy was unmistakably assured and convincing about the importance of his new role and his own suitability for it. Director of football is usually the chocolate fireguard of the game, a superfluous tier of management which serves little practical purpose. Needless to say, at Hearts things seem to be different. In Rix the club had a coach who seemed to be drowning in the job until Duffy, his close friend, arrived with an outstretched hand. “He smiles a bit more,” said Duffy alluding to the change in Rix’s demeanour since they were reunited after previous spells at Dundee, Chelsea and Portsmouth. “He is a lot more relaxed, but that’s just because I’m humorous ...”

Were it not for the fact Rix and Duffy are such old and close friends there would be something incongruous about the latter’s sudden prominence in the Hearts dug-out during matches. Duffy can appear more animated than his pal and that creates the impression that it is he who is the dominant figure. But it was Rix who insisted on Duffy’s input during training and matches, and the latter involvement certainly makes it look as though Hearts have a director of football who makes a more obvious contribution than is usually the case elsewhere.

“It doesn’t always work and if you asked a number of football managers very few of them would openly welcome a director of football,” Duffy acknowledged. “In this case Graham knows that it should be helpful to him. The most important thing is that he knows I’m 100 per cent his friend. I think my appointment was more to do with communication. That was what I was asked to go and speak to Mr Romanov about initially. To start with I was asked to be a direct point of contact and then Mr Romanov asked me to look at a few things. Then he decided he wanted me to take on more responsibility.”

Rix does not publicly come across as someone who would willingly stand up to Romanov . Duffy is different. Although he had been out of coaching since being sacked by Dundee in August, his familiarity and status throughout Scottish football means there is no fear of the sack, and long-term unemployment, undermining his dealings with Romanov.

Having worked under Ron Dixon at Dundee, Ken Bates at Chelsea, and Milan Mandaric at Portsmouth, Duffy is phlegmatic about the perception of Romanov as an incurable meddler unable or unwilling to stop himself dictating team selection to his coaches. “’Mr Romanov may well say to me ‘I think Rudi Skacel should play’. And I would say ‘ah well, that’s fine’. I might argue the point, or agree with it, or we might have a difference of opinion and discuss it. But at the end of the day I would go back to Graham and I might tell him or I might not, it depends on whether I feel it was an open discussion or something that was a strong opinion. But the bottom line is that Graham will pick the team.

“He [Vladimir Romanov] probably is impulsive and probably has a ruthless streak but I don’t have a problem with that. If you work hard, work honestly and give your opinion that’s all you can do. If I do have an opinion I won’t just sit there and nod every time someone else speaks. You need to be respectful of the owner and Mr Romanov is the owner. But if everyone just nodded every time he spoke then what’s the point in having the job? I will give my views and ultimately it will be his decision whether he wants to move on them or ignore them.”

If it is difficult to imagine Duffy and Rix still running Hearts in, say, three years’ time, then a similar observation could be made in relation to many of the leading characters around Tynecastle these days including the Romanovs themselves. The two friends are on contracts which run only until the end of the season. Perhaps one will appeal to Romanov and the other will not. If Duffy’s work on youth coaching and contractual administration is sound, wouldn’t it be wise to keep him on even if the team – Rix’s team – fails to win the Tennent’s Scottish Cup or hold on to second place and qualification for the Champions League? “I don’t think I’m guaranteed the job even if we finish in a Champions League position and win the cup. At another club it might guarantee it, but this isn’t any other club. Mr Romanov might decide there is someone better out there – he might want someone else to come in and take the club through the Champions League. But if we do well there is the possibility the contracts will be lengthened.”

Duffy has his admirers. His coaching at Chelsea improved John Terry as a defender according to his brother Paul, who was a former Yeovil team-mate of recent Hearts signing Lee Johnson.

Johnson amusingly likened the town of Yeovil to the reality show satire The Truman Show because “you could sit in a cafe in the town and it would be the same faces walking past the window all the time”. Not so at Tynecastle. The Hearts soap opera continues to offer an ever-changing cast list.

Taken from the Sunday Herald