Tony Docherty wants to jump back on the managerial merry-go-round just weeks after his shock Dundee exit.
The former Aberdeen and St Johnstone assistant took his first steps as a No 1 at Dens Park and led the Dark Blues to a top-six finish in his first campaign.
Last season proved more tricky and a 10th-place finish saw managing director John Nelms wield the axe less than 24 hours after the season ended.
Docherty was replaced by Steven Pressley a fortnight later.
The now-ex-Dundee manager hasn’t wasted any time getting back involved in the game, however, and has been helping the SFA take coaches through their A Licence course.
‘Open to anything’
But he wants back in frontline management.
“Absolutely. I’m open to anything. I’ve been in the game a long, long time,” he said.
“I’ve been 25 years in dressing-rooms at first-team level as a coach, as an assistant manager and most recently as a manager.
“I just love that environment. I’ve got that educational background. That’s my passion. My passion is improving and developing players and I’m just looking forward to the next opportunity I get to do that.
“I’ve been busy. I always keep myself busy anyway, but I was down at the SFA A Licence course, taking the coaches through, being on the staff there with a lot of former managers like Robbie Neilson, Callum Davidson and Jack Ross, boys like that.
“So I really enjoyed that. I’m keeping myself busy just waiting for the next challenge.
“Football’s football. You move on as quickly as you can. I look back on my time at Dundee with real pride, particularly with guys like McCowan, Cameron, Beck and Josh Mulligan.
“I would like to think I played a pivotal part in their development and I’m just readying myself for the next challenge.”
Pride
Asked if he looks back on his time in charge at Dundee with pride, Docherty told the Daily Record: “Yeah, I think so. I look back on it, and there’s a lot within that as well, like your record-breaking derby wins.
“Sometimes it can be challenging when you improve and develop players, particularly the young players. I take a lot of pride in the fact that there was a stat out just recently, they were saying about how much we were the youngest team in the league.
“So I take pride in that as well, knowing that I played a big part. Not just your boys mentioned, but Owen Beck, Ziyad Larkeche, Aaron Donnelly, Oluwaseun Adewumi… you could go through them all.
“I do look back on it with a good sense of pride, but as I say, that chapter’s gone now and it’s about moving on to the next challenge.”
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