Tommy Docherty


Thomas Henderson Docherty, commonly known as "The Doc", is a Scottish former football player and manager. Docherty played for several clubs, most notably Preston North End, and represented Scotland 25 times between 1951 and 1959. He then managed a total of 13 clubs between 1961 and 1988, as well as managing the Scottish national team. Docherty was manager of Manchester United between 1972 and 1977, during which time United were relegated to the Second Division, but promoted back to the First Division as Champions at the first attempt.

Playing career

Born in Gorbals, Glasgow, Docherty began his playing career when he joined junior football club Shettleston. The turning point in his playing career came in 1946 when he was called up for National service in the Highland Light Infantry. While completing his National service, Docherty represented the British Army at football. On demobilisation, Docherty was offered a contract with Celtic in 1947. He would later say that Jimmy Hogan, the club's coach, was his greatest influence.
In November 1949, after spending over two years with Celtic, he joined Preston North End. With the Lilywhites he won the 1951 Second Division title and got to the 1954 FA Cup Final. Altogether Docherty made close to 300 appearances for the club. He left Deepdale in August of that year to join Arsenal for £28,000. With the Gunners he made a sum of 83 appearances scoring once. He then went to play for Chelsea where he brought an end to his playing days in 1962.

International career

At Preston Docherty received the first of his 25 full Scotland international caps. Docherty was part of the Scotland squad that played at the 1958 FIFA World Cup finals which was hosted in Sweden.

Managerial career

Chelsea

In February 1961, Docherty was offered the post of player-coach of Chelsea. Less than twelve months later, upon Ted Drake's departure and with the club facing relegation from the top flight, Docherty took over as manager. He was unable to keep the club in the First Division, however, and the team was relegated at the end of the 1961–62 season.
During his first year in charge he sold many of the club's older players and brought in new ones such as Terry Venables, Bobby Tambling, Peter Bonetti and Barry Bridges. He also changed the club's home colours, switching from white shorts to blue shorts, the combination that remains as of 2018. The team, nicknamed "Docherty's Diamonds", achieved promotion back to Division One in their first attempt and finished fifth the following year. In 1964–65, Chelsea won the League Cup in April with an aggregate win over Leicester City, but were beaten 2–0 by eventual winner Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final.
Docherty led Chelsea to the FA and the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup semi-finals a year later, before reaching the FA Cup Final in 1967, which they lost to Tottenham Hotspur. He resigned in October 1967. The core of the team Docherty had put together, including Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Ron Harris, Bonetti and John Hollins, went on to win the FA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup under Docherty's successor, Dave Sexton. A decade later Sexton succeeded Docherty as manager of Manchester United.

Rotherham, QPR, Aston Villa, Porto and Scotland

The month following his departure from Chelsea, Docherty became manager of Rotherham United. He left Rotherham after a year and was appointed manager at Queens Park Rangers, only to leave 29 days later. He then became Doug Ellis' first manager at Aston Villa in December 1968, for 13 months. On 19 January 1970, with Aston Villa bottom of the Second Division, Docherty was sacked.
From there he went to FC Porto, where he stayed for 16 months before resigning in May 1971, having failed to usurp Benfica and Sporting. On 2 July 1971, he was appointed by Hull City as assistant manager to Terry Neill, but on 12 September he left to become the caretaker manager of Scotland, with the position becoming permanent in November 1971.

Manchester United

In December 1972, when Frank O'Farrell was sacked as manager of Manchester United, Docherty was poached by Manchester United and quit his job with Scotland to become manager. His first game in charge was against Leeds United at Old Trafford. The game finished 1–1 with Ted MacDougall scoring one of his few goals for United. Although United were in serious trouble when he took them over, because of an ageing squad, he managed to keep them in the First Division in 1972–73. The 1973–74 season saw United continue to struggle and they were eventually relegated to the Second Division.
In the following season, United returned to the top flight as Second Division champions. In 1975–76 they finished in third place in the First Division and also reached the 1976 FA Cup Final. United lost 1–0 to Southampton, who were then in the Second Division. Docherty led United to the FA Cup final again in 1977, this time as underdogs against Liverpool. United won 2–1, denying Liverpool the second trophy of a possible treble of League, FA Cup and European Cup.
Shortly afterwards, news that Docherty was having an extramarital affair with the wife of a United physiotherapist, Laurie Brown, became public. He was sacked in a blaze of publicity in July 1977. Docherty was replaced at Old Trafford by the same man who had replaced him at Chelsea, Dave Sexton. The affair also resulted in the end of his marriage to Agnes, who had been his wife since December 1949. She has since died. Docherty later married Mary Brown, and the couple are still together. Docherty has subsequently had a frosty relationship with the club.

Later career

Docherty became manager at Derby County in September 1977, where he stayed for two seasons before resigning in May 1979. His next appointment was at Queens Park Rangers in May 1979. When he took over at Loftus Road, Rangers had been relegated to the Second Division and Docherty had to lift the team spirits to start the new season. New players such as Clive Allen, Tony Currie and Paul Goddard were brought in. Despite this, Docherty had a quick fallout with Queens Park Rangers's star player, Stan Bowles. Docherty made Bowles train with the reserves for several months, before selling him on to Nottingham Forest in December 1979. Although money was spent, Queens Park Rangers finished the season four points short of promotion to the First Division. In May 1980, Docherty was sacked by chairman, Jim Gregory, then reinstated after just nine days away. In October 1980, Docherty was sacked for the second time in five months.
This was followed by a short spell in Australia coaching Sydney Olympic in 1981. He returned to England in July that year to manage Preston North End, where he had spent nine years as a player. He left after a few months, returning to Australia to manage South Melbourne until the following year. He also managed Sydney Olympic again in 1983.
Docherty returned to England once more with Wolverhampton Wanderers just after their relegation from the First Division in 1984. He was sacked within a year, however, as Wolves headed for a second successive relegation, eventually going on to suffer three relegations in a row. Their 1984–85 season had included a 21-match winless run in the league. Docherty took up his final managerial position at Altrincham on 28 September 1987. He retired from management at the end of the 1987–88 season.

Personal life

Docherty married his first wife, Agnes, in 1950, the year after he left his native Scotland to sign for Preston North End. They were married for 27 years until Docherty announced his love affair with Mary Brown. They had four children together; Thomas junior, Michael "Mick", Catherine and Peter. Since the collapse of his first marriage, he has only had regular contact with Mick out of the four children from that marriage. After marrying Mary Brown, he had two more children – Grace and Lucy – who were born during the 1980s. Agnes died in September 2002 at the age of 73. In 2008, Docherty junior released a book Married to a Man of Two Halves in 2008, which was based on memoirs and newspaper cuttings which he had discovered when clearing out his mother's house after her death.

Honours

Player

;Preston North End
;Chelsea
;Manchester United