WHEN the book Dundee Greats was published in 1991, Jocky Scott was an automatic choice to fill one of ten chapters. He was, back then, in one of his resting periods away from Dens Park, after a mere three tours of duty. While no-one would have bet ag
ainst him returning to the club, few could have envisaged another two spells as manager, particularly since his first stint was described by author Jim Hendry as having ended amid "gloomy circumstances".
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Scott's second spell as Dundee manager ended in a similarly undesirable manner, even if the promise of continental stars meant few took the time to reflect on the grubby nature of what had occurred. Scott had taken the side to fifth and then seventh place in the Premier League, but was rewarded with a form of silent torture. Rumours about his imminent exit abounded, but he was not officially informed until the final week of his contract. Days later the Bonetti brothers were hosting a press conference in the Ballinard Hotel.
To compound matters for Scott, he had even been introduced to his successor more than a year earlier, prior to a derby match. Dundee won 1-0 but the writing was already on the wall as the players and staff made their way on foot down Tannadice Street.
"I perhaps didn't recognise it at the time," recalls Scott at Dens this week. "We were having our pre-match meal through there because we were playing Dundee United at Tannadice. Ivano Bonetti was there sitting having a meal with the players, with (owners] Jimmy and Peter (Marr]. I was introduced to him, and he was described as being over on holiday. Somehow he had met up with Peter. I was focused on the game and didn't think anything of it. It was maybe a couple of weeks after that that I started to get vibes and heard one or two things, and when I thought back to that night it clicked. It showed me up as being a bit of a fool."
Yet he has not been put off. Now 60, he is not just wiser, but also prepared to forgive and forget. Which is just as well for Dundee. So high are the stakes that, should he manage to rescue the club from its present plight, there will be little doubt as to the identity of Dundee's finest servant, one deserving of more than just a chapter in a book. Scott made 433 appearances for Dundee between 1964 and 1981, while this afternoon's fixture at Dunfermline represents his 204th game in charge of the club, across three different spells. Should Dundee manage to record a first victory since August it will provide some symmetry to Scott's managerial statistics. So far his record stands at 80 wins and 81 losses.
Since the financial difficulties of the late 1990s, Dundee have not dared to look too far into the future. Perhaps this explains why there is a tendency to delve back into the past, although, for the previous two managerial appointments, chairman Bob Brannan sought to inject youth and vigour into the club. Both Alan Kernaghan and Alex Rae fulfilled the wish for young managers with something to prove, but neither were able to offer what is becoming the ever more urgent demand of promotion. Scott's application for the post was passed over on both occasions, but he retained the faith and feeling for Dundee to try again last month.
The club are currently languishing in their worst league position in over a quarter of a century, and since a young Cammy Fraser's introduction helped inspire the team to promotion after they briefly occupied bottom place in the First Division. Once more it is a case of cometh the hour, cometh the moustache.
Scott sniffs the air. Little has changed. "A couple of office staff, that's about it," he says. He is in an office he knows well, and where four managers have sat since his last spell in charge. The 18-month contract he has signed seems sensible, considering the average tenure of a Dundee manager over the last 20 years is just 17 months. By the end of next season he hopes to have the club back in the Premier League again, although this doesn't mean the current campaign has been written-off following a wretched start.
Scott's appointment proved popular in a dressing-room perhaps concerned about talk of less experienced candidates. One senior player contacted chief executive Dave MacKinnon and urged him to select the veteran, who was the players' choice. This follows comments over the years from those of such standing as Charlie Nicholas, who once described Scott as the best forwards' coach he had ever worked with.
The new manager has thanked the players for their support with double-training sessions, although he explains this is because there is little time to waste getting to know each other. He hasn't picked up any devastating new techniques since his last managerial spell at Dens, though has experienced some more bitter blows.
A recent four-month period with Danish side Viborg FF, where he assisted former Aberdeen and Rangers coach Tommy Moller-Nielson, came to an end in circumstances not unlike his removal to make way for the Bonettis, when a new Swedish manager was appointed without the pair's knowledge.
"I have not learnt new tricks, the game itself does not change," says Scott, who appears certainly more laid-back than a decade ago. "The game is still 11 v 11, and you attack one goal and defend another goal. But I think the biggest thing about getting older is that you handle players better on the man-management side of things. I think I am more tolerant."
Scott references Walter Smith's speech at this year's football writers' dinner in Glasgow, where the Rangers manager pointed out, in colourful language, that he didn't care what others thought anymore. "Sacking me won't hurt me," Scott says.
"It has hurt me before. But it won't hurt me now. I am hoping when I walk away from here I am not being pushed out. I want the club in the Premier League again, obviously."
He is too modest to add that this is where he left Dundee, before the elated rattle of the Bonetti – and Giovanni Di Stefano – years saw a lot of money and sense blown out of the Dens Park main door. "I'll admit I couldn't have brought these players here," he says, of Claudio Caniggia et al. "But what would the Dundee fans have preferred? Players like that playing here for a spell and with the club in the situation that they are in now, or would they prefer to be playing in the Premier League with a well organised, good side.
"I came and watched a couple of games," he continues. "Exciting players, yes, but at the end of the day the results were not any better. Surely the object of the exercise is if you are bringing in better players then you expect to get better results."
Given the strides made by United in recent times under Craig Levein, it is particularly galling for Dundee fans to note that in Scott's last season in charge the club's rivals were below them in the league. Now some contend the gap between the city's senior clubs has never been greater.
You have to admire Scott's resilience. His first games for Dundee as a teenager were in the company of men like Alan Gilzean and Charlie Cooke. Now he runs his finger down a squad list of moderate players on his office wall, half of whom are rendered redundant in any case due to injury. Perhaps only Colin Cameron, who won 28 international caps to Scott's one, could lay claim to being the talent his manager was, although Dundee fans of a certain age will always thrill to the memory of Scott, fingers gripping the end of his shirt sleeves.
It is an image which can sustain them in these darker times, though Scott, never one for romanticising about football, will leave them to their nostalgia. After the rude interruption of nearly a decade, he has some work to be getting on with.
The full article contains 1408 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
