Towards the end of last week, as a certain high-profile Sky Sports pundit insisted it was “no big deal” that he had not returned to Sunderland to resume a management career that has been on the backburner for over a decade, one of his former international teammates took charge of his first senior game. A big story in his native Ireland, it flew largely under the radar elsewhere.
Eight years after he drew the curtain on his career in English football, Damien Duff might have questioned the wisdom of his decision to take on the manager’s role at the League of Ireland side Shelbourne as he strode down the “wrong” side of a touchline he patrolled with such distinction as a player for Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Newcastle United and Fulham. In surroundings that could scarcely have been less glamorous, he began his new life as a gaffer on a filthy Friday night in the Dublin suburb of Drumcondra, where Tolka Park was taking a pounding from the wind and rain.
