Sick of the sight of him- ‘Rookie’ boss has plenty of previous with Brendan Rodgers

At the age of 52 not many folk decide that now is the time to move into management.

Surviving to that age in the cut throat world of football coaching is quite an achievement, especially when SFA rules forced you to retire from playing in your twenties to take up a full time coaching gig.

Albion Rovers loss was Derek McInnes’ gain as he caught up with Tony Docherty at Dundee United, forming a successful management team at St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock with a short spell at Bristol City thrown into the mix.

The Dundee manager’s job is notoriously precarious but something about it appealed to Docherty with Gordon Stachan turning to the coach that he had brought into the Scotland set up while he was in charge of the national side.

It is an understatement to say that the new Dundee boss has served his apprenticeship, unfortunately much of his learning has been looking across the technical area at successes for Brendan Rodgers with three defeats in Hampden cup finals obvious regrets.

Celtic Park did provide Docherty with his managerial highlight, winning the 2014 League Cup on penalties to give 40,000 Aberdeen fans their first trophy in a generation.

Tomorrow he’ll go head-to-head with Rodgers for the first time, a boss that he knows well from painful experiences as an assistant.

Docherty told the Daily Record:

We went toe-to-toe with him and I have the utmost respect for him. I am glad he is back in the league because there can’t be enough top coaches in Scottish football, in my opinion. There are so many brilliant coaches, players and clubs but for him, he is someone I have a huge amount of respect for because he has coached at every level and he has excelled.

He has also maintained his humanity and he is such a good guy to speak to. He is good company and I look forward to seeing him on Saturday.

I remember when we were pitting our wits against him, it was us against him really. Chris Davies was his assistant at the time and I would like to say fond memories but they weren’t really. I was sick of the sight of him but he is somebody I have huge respect for because of the work he has done in the game.

Five points from four matches is a decent start to the season for Dundee but in their last match, away to St Johnstone they were 2-0 in front after 81 minutes but had to settle for a draw.