Damien Duff takes bold first step into management at Tolka Park

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.

For Duff, this maiden foray into management constituted an extremely big deal, the 42-year-old having openly admitted he was terrified by the prospect of taking over a famous old Dublin club that has in recent years fallen upon hard times.

“Am I scared? Absolutely,” he’d told reporters at his unveiling in early November. “Do I feel uncomfortable? Absolutely. Going into the Shels first‑team role, is it going to be easy? No. Is it going to be comfortable? No. But it is going to give me 24/7 focus which is what I need. When I have an idle mind, like most people, it is not good for you.”

A two-time Premier League champion who represented his country 100 times in a playing career bookended by spells at Shelbourne’s great Dublin rivals Shamrock Rovers, Duff had been keeping his