From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tommy Docherty
Personal information
Full name	Thomas Henderson Docherty
Date of birth	August 24, 1928 (age 78)
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Nickname	The Doc
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1947-1949 1949-1958 1958-1961 1961-1962	Celtic Preston North End Arsenal Chelsea	? (?) 323 (5) 83 (1) 4 (0)
National team
1951-1959	Scotland	25 (1)
Teams managed
1961-1967 1967-1968 1968 1968-1970 1970-1971 1971-1972 1972 1972-1977 1977-1979 1979-1980 1981 1981-1982 1982-1983 1983 1984-1985 1987-1988	Chelsea Rotherham United Queens Park Rangers Aston Villa FC Porto Hull City Scotland Manchester United Derby County Queens Park Rangers Sydney Olympic Preston North End South Melbourne FC Sydney Olympic Wolverhampton Wanderers Altrincham
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Thomas Henderson Docherty (born Gorbals, Glasgow on 24 August 1928), usually known as Tommy Docherty or "the Doc", is a Scottish former footballer and football manager.

Tommy Docherty's football career began when he joined non-League Shettleston Juniors. The turning point in his playing career came in 1946 when he was called up to do National Service in the Highland Infantry.

While completing his National Service, Docherty represented the British Army at football. On demobilisation, Docherty was offered a contract with his beloved Celtic F.C. in 1947.

However the young Docherty found first team places hard to come by at Celtic and, in November 1949, after spending just over two years with the Club he'd supported as a boy, he joined Preston North End F.C. It was at Preston where he enjoyed the most successful period of his playing career, making over 300 League appearances, and appearing in an FA Cup Final in 1954. At Preston he received the first of his 25 full Scotland international caps.

After defying Preston and travelling to the World Cup finals with Scotland, in Sweden in 1958, he left Deepdale that year to join Arsenal F.C. It was at Arsenal where he was to finish his serious playing career in 1961, although he did go on to play a few games for Chelsea.

In February 1961 his dream of becoming a football coach materialised. He was offered the post of player-coach of Chelsea F.C. Less than twelve months later, after Ted Drake's departure with the club facing relegation, he took over as manager. Docherty was unable to keep the club in the division, and the team were relegated at the end of the 1961-62 season.

Though not a great tactician, Docherty's skill was his ability to spot talented players and as a motivator. During his first year in charge he replaced many of the club's older players and put together an exciting team of emerging youngsters such as Terry Venables, Bobby Tambling, Peter Bonetti and Barry Bridges. The team, nicknamed "Docherty's Diamonds", achieved promotion back to Division One at the first attempt and finished 5th the following year. In 1964-65, Chelsea were on course for a treble of League, FA Cup and League Cup. They won the League Cup in April with an aggregate win over Leicester City, but were beaten by Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-finals.

By this stage, Docherty's relationship with some of his players, especially his captain Venables, was deteriorating. This culminated in him sending home eight players for breaking a curfew before a crucial match at Burnley with the team two points behind League leaders Manchester United. The team that remained lost the match, which all but ended their title chances. He led Chelsea to the FA and Fairs Cup semi-finals a year later, before reaching the FA Cup Final in 1967 only to end up on the losing side for the second time in his career. In October that year he resigned. The core of the team Docherty put together at Chelsea, including the likes of Peter Osgood, Charlie Cooke, Ron Harris, Bonetti and John Hollins, would go on to win the FA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup under his successor, Dave Sexton.

The following month became manager of Rotherham United F.C. He left the club the following year, was appointed manager at Queens Park Rangers F.C., but left after 29 days. He then had the dubious distinction of becoming Doug Ellis' first manager at Aston Villa F.C. in December 1968, in which role he survived for 13 months.

On 19 January 1970, with Aston Villa bottom of the Second Division, he was sacked. From there he went to FC Porto and lasted 4 months. On 2 July 1971, Docherty was appointed by Hull City A.F.C. as assistant manager to Terry Neill, but on September 12 he was appointed as caretaker manager of Scotland, with the position becoming permanent in November.

In December 1972, Frank O'Farrell was sacked as manager of Manchester United, the temptation of managing one of Europe's biggest clubs was too much to resist; Docherty was poached by United and quit his job with Scotland, to take up the role of manager with the Red Devils. The flamboyant arrival of Docherty brought with it a security and confidence that suggested the exciting trophy winning sides would return. To say the Doc was controversial would be an understatement. His reputation immediately endeared him to the Stretford Enders and although United were in serious trouble when he took them over he managed to keep them in the First Division in 1972-73, though United were relegated to the Second Division a year later.

In the following season United bounced back up and in 1975-76 they finished in third place in Division One and reached the FA Cup final, surprisingly losing to Lawrie McMenemy's Southampton. Docherty led them to the final again a year later, in 1976-77, on that occasion winning against Liverpool. Shortly afterwards news that Docherty was having an extra-marital affair with the wife of a United physiotherapist Laurie Brown had become public. He was sacked in a blaze of publicity in July 1977. Ironically, Docherty was replaced at Old Trafford by the same man who had replaced him at Chelsea, Dave Sexton.

It was not long before Docherty was back in work, taking the managers job at Derby County in September 1977, where he stayed for two seasons before resigning in April 1979. His time at Derby was marred by controversy off the pitch. On taking over at Derby, Docherty became embroiled in a bitter Court case, suing the ex-Manchester United captain Willie Morgan and Granada television for libel. The case was eventually dropped with Docherty admitting he had lied in Court. The end of the Court case coincided with the end of Docherty's managerial career with Derby.

Queens Park Rangers became his next port of call in May 1979. He was sacked almost immediately, then reinstated after just nine days. On taking 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. His reputation kept a lot of big names with the Club and new players such as Clive Allen, Tony Currie and Paul Goddard were brought in. Although money was spent, QPR finished the season four points short of promotion to the First Division. In October 1980, he was sacked. He later claimed "I sacked Queens Park Rangers once and they later sacked me twice".

After a short spell in Australia coaching Sydney Olympic in 1981, his career came full circle and he returned to England in July that year to manage Preston North End, where he had spent nine successful years as a player. But he was unable to make his mark and 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, Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. from 1984 to 1985 and Altrincham F.C. from 1987 to 1988 before retiring from football.

As a manager Tommy Docherty was nothing if not controversial. He has earned a living for the past 20 years as a media pundit and after-dinner speaker.

	Scotland squad - 1954 FIFA World Cup
1 Martin | 2 Cunningham | 3 Aird | 4 Evans | 5 Docherty | 6 Davidson | 7 Cowie | 8 Mackenzie | 9 Hamilton | 10 Brown | 11 Machan | 12 Fernie | 13 Ormond | 14 Anderson | 15 Johnstone | 16 Henderson | 17 Mathers | 18 Wilson | 19 Binning | 20 Combe | 21 Copland | 22 McMillan | Coach: Beattie

	Scotland squad - 1958 FIFA World Cup
1 Younger | 2 Brown | 3 Parker | 4 Caldow | 5 Hewie | 6 Haddock | 7 McColl | 8 Turnbull | 9 Evans | 10 Docherty | 11 Mackay | 12 Cowie | 13 Baird | 14 Leggat | 15 Scott | 16 Murray | 17 Mudie | 18 Coyle | 19 Collins | 20 Robertson | 21 Imlach | 22 Fernie | Coach: Walker

Manchester United F.C. - Managers
Albut (1892-1900) | West (1900-03) | Mangnall (1903-12) | Bentley (1912-14) | Robson (1914-22) | Chapman (1921-27) | Hilditch (1926-27) | Bamlett (1927-31) | Crickmer (1931-32) | Duncan (1932-37) | Crickmer (1937-45) | Busby (1945-69) | McGuinness (1969-70) | Busby (1970-71) | O'Farrell (1971-72) | Docherty (1972-77) | Sexton (1977-81) | Atkinson (1981-86) | Ferguson (1986-)