John Duncan - Rest In Peace
John Duncan had a very good playing and managerial career. He signed for Dundee on leaving school. He was a very good striker scoring 109 goals for Dundee in 188 appearances including finishing as Scottish football’s top scorer in 1972-1973 scoring 40 goals in 46 games. He won the League Cup with Dundee in 1974.
I remember him signing for Tottenham in 1975 and followed him quite closely because Tottenham were my glory team as a kid due to Martin Peters signing for them. He had a few injuries but he had a great scoring record of 53 goals in 103 games. He played against the Stags in Division 2 (The Championship) in a 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane on 27th December 1977. He gave Spurs the lead in the 15th minute when his shot was saved by Rod Arnold but he followed up to score from the rebound. Pat Sharkey then missed a penalty for the Stags before Johnny Miller crossed from the right for Kevin Bird to score the equaliser. John Duncan did not play in the 3-3 home draw against the Stags in March presumably because he was injured. He scored 20 goals for Tottenham that season.
https://www.stagsnet.net/vintage/reports/spurs_away.htmJohn Duncan then moved to Derby County scoring 12 goals in 36 games before finishing his career with 9 games at Scunthorpe.
John Duncan moved into management at Scunthorpe United in 1981 and they finished 23rd in Division 4 and had to apply to re-election. They were going for promotion the following season but he was sacked in February for applying for the job as Grimsby manager who were in Division 2 (The Championship). Allan Clarke took over as Scunthorpe manager and won promotion. John Duncan went to Hartlepool who were near the bottom of Division 4 and they finished 22nd and he had to apply for re-election again.
He was appointed as Chesterfield's manager in 1983 and he brought in Kevin Randall as assistant manager. They won the Division 4 title in 1984-1985. He kept Chesterfield in Division 3 for two seasons finishing 17th twice before being appointed as Ipswich manager in Division 2 in 1987. Ipswich finished 8th twice and missed the play offs by 3 points before he was sacked.
John Duncan returned to the Spireites in Feb 1993. Kevin Randall left his position at the Stags to rejoin him as assistant manager. Chesterfield finished 3rd in Division 4 (League 2) and won promotion by beating Andy King's Stags in the play off semi-finals in 1994-1995 who had finished 6th. Chesterfield beat Bury 2-0 in the Play Off Final. They finished 7th in Division 3 (League 1) in 1995-1996 missing the play offs by 1 point. They then finished 10th and 9th including reaching the FA Cup semi-finals in 1997. They finished bottom of the league in 1999-2000 and were relegated back to League 2. John Duncan was sacked by the new Chesterfield owner and convicted fraudster Darren Brown in April 2000.
John Duncan signed Paul Holland, Andy Beasley and Chris Perkins from the Stags. Tom Curtis also played for him and he signed Tony Lormor from Lincoln City.
There's a good tribute on the Chesterfield website
https://chesterfield-fc.co.uk/club-news ... rememberedhttps://www.scunthorpe-united.co.uk/new ... hn-duncan/https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2 ... hn-duncan/