Former Celt Barry Smith has been sacked as manager of Dundee.
Smith took charge at Dens Park in October 2010, stepping up from being youth coach as the club plunged into administration with Gordon Chisholm and Billy Dodds axed as part of the cost cutting.
Despite suffering a 25 point reduction for going into administration- and a signing embargo- Smith steered the club away from relegation and at one stage they had an outside chance of promotion but were unable to catch up on Dunfermline..
A short statement from Dundee read: ”Dundee FC today announced that they have parted company with manager Barry Smith with immediate effect. Until matters regarding this have been formally concluded, no further statement will be made.”
Smith faced a thankless task this season after being promoted to the SPL two weeks before the season started.
While Neil Armageddon Doncaster and Stewart Civil Unrest Regan did everything they could to provide Sevco with a place in the SPL Dundee and Dunfermline found themselves among the contenders
when Club 12 was included in the SPL fixture list.
With a fortnight to go before they were due to start the new season with a Ramsden’s Cup tie at Brechin Smith found himself preparing for a season in the SPL rather than the First Division.
Despite wins at home
and away to Hearts the Dens Parkers quickly became detached at the bottom of the table with no money made available in the January transfer window.
Former Celtic keeper Rab Douglas is likely to be a candidate to take over as manager but whoever replaces Smith is in for a thankless task with the club resigned to a swift return to the First Division.
Smith moved from Celtic to Dundee in 1995 making over 300 appearances for the club before joining Morton in 2006.
Scapegoat. I always felt that it made more sense to keep Dunfermline up. After all, one of teams that had relegated them had been cheating.
paranoidandroid
That would have meant the authorities admitting the cheating and that would have been and still is a NO, NO!
H H
Very true.
Rangers were NOT RELEGATED!!!!
Rangers FC ceased to exist and because of that an extra place was available in the SPL.
Get the basic facts right please bhoys!!!
Who said ragers were relegated? Ragers were kicked out of the SPL.
What I said was that Dunfermline were relegated from a league that had a team in it that had cheated. You would think that would have given them grounds for complaint.
This has got hee-haw to do with zombies.
This has all to do with a manager who worked under draconian constraints and brought Dundee in a football sense back from the brink. To be now SHAFTED.
The Dundee board should hang their heads in shame. They now deserve everything that’s comming to them, relegation, humiliation and ultimately for Dundee Utd to swallow them up.
Hail hail
Barry Smith had an almost impossible job, ditto for whoever takes over. No idea what the Dundee board are thinkng about, Smith proved he could get results, work within virtually a zero budget.
Now a new manager will want players, backroom staff. They should have backed Smith, put faith in young players and even if it meant going down they would still have a great chance to bounce right back. Now the club is in utter turmoil AGAIN, Celtico is right they DESERVE all that is coming to them.