PFA SCOTLAND’S latest Player of the Year will be confirmed at a do in Glasgow tomorrow night.
Voted by his peers the country’s best, the winners’ list goes back to 1978 when Rangers’ Derek Johnstone was the first recipient.
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The trophy for PFA Scotland Player of the Year will be handed out on Sunday
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Jim Duffy was one of the most extraordinary winners of the awardCredit: Willie Vass
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The former defender won the prize in a relegated Greenock Morton teamCredit: Scottish News and Sport
40 years ago there was an extraordinary winner — a part-timer who helped supplement his earnings by working in a pub.
And, even more incredibly, he was a defender at the heart of a Morton team who were relegated from the Premier League after finishing bottom and conceding 100 goals, including seven-goal defeats to Dundee United and Celtic.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen were champions, with Frank McDougall netting 24 goals, Paul McStay on top form with Celtic and Davie Cooper dazzling with Rangers.
That centre-half Jim Duffy was regarded as the best in the country by his fellow pros said it all about his level of individual performance and the respect for him.
Little wonder the highly respected Duffy, 44 years as a player, coach, manager and director of football, reflects on the anniversary of his wonderful accolade with as much pride as he did back in the day he lifted the cherished award.
The radio pundit told SunSport: “I was a part-timer at Morton, I also worked at St George’s Bar in Glasgow.
“If I hadn’t been at the Player of the Year dinner I’d have been behind the bar – I actually think I was working there during the day.
“I was completely stunned just to be on the shortlist, never mind win it.
“If I remember rightly, the others listed were Paul McStay, Davie Cooper and Frank McDougall, God rest Davie and Frank.
“Frank had scored over 20 goals, Paul was a Celtic legend and Coops was just phenomenal, one of the greatest Scottish players, so it was totally humbling the players voted for me.
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“Me playing for Morton and us being relegated, well it just didn’t make sense.
“When you’re playing you don’t really think about it.
“The season’s so tough, all you can do is concentrate and focus as hard as you can on each game.
“It was an extremely hard season for us.
“We had some brilliant moments, a few shock victories, but every game was an absolute effort.
“I was 25 and it was a few years after I’d left Celtic where I hadn’t been able to make the breakthrough.
“We’d got promotion the year before into the Premier League.
“To be brutally honest, we were out of our depth, the table didn’t lie.
“We lost a lot of good players like Jim Rooney, Jim Holmes and others before that, so we were a very inexperienced team at that level.
“Financially, the club wasn’t in a great position, so we were always going to be up against it.
“It was the era of the great Aberdeen and Dundee United teams under Alex Ferguson and Jim McLean.
“I’m really proud I won the Player of the Year award.
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“My vote went to Dundee United’s Paul Sturrock, he was a brilliant striker.
“Later that summer I moved to Dundee and I became friends with Paul Hegarty and Davie Narey, and Jim McInally was already a good pal of mine.
“They all said they’d voted for me, and they’d appreciated my attitude in games, especially with it being tough for Morton.
“I never got carried away with myself, but I could play a bit, I could read the game, I could organise, I was vocal.
“Some of the Rangers guys — Davie Cooper included — said they’d also voted for me.
“I remember speaking to Tommy Burns at Celtic, he also said he’d picked me.
“It still gives me a thrill now thinking about it.
“It really was humbling to learn such top players had rated me so highly.
“But I’d been so focused on the team I wasn’t thinking about my own displays.
“Even on the night I was looking at the others shortlisted and thinking ‘How can I possibly win this?’
“Coops congratulated me, then I met Frank McDougall and his first words were: ‘HOW the f*** did you win that?’
“We laughed about it, he was a great lad.”
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