James Jefferies (born 22 November 1950 in

Musselburgh Musselburgh (; sco, Musselburrae; gd, Baile nam Feusgan) is the largest settlement in East Lothian, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth, east of Edinburgh city centre. It has a population of . History The name Musselburgh is Ol ...

) is a Scottish

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manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activitie ...

and former player. Jefferies played for Heart of Midlothian for almost his whole playing career and enjoyed a successful first managerial spell with the club, winning the 1998 Scottish Cup. Jefferies has also managed

Gala Fairydean Gala Fairydean Rovers Football Club are a Scottish association football club based in the town of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. The club competes in the , after joining from the East of Scotland Football League in 2013. At the same time ...

, Berwick Rangers,

Falkirk Falkirk ( gd, An Eaglais Bhreac, sco, Fawkirk) is a large town in the Central Lowlands of Scotland, historically within the county of Stirlingshire. It lies in the Forth Valley, northwest of Edinburgh and northeast of Glasgow. Falkirk had ...

Bradford City Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes. Th ...

Kilmarnock Kilmarnock (, sco, Kilmaurnock; gd, Cill Mheàrnaig (IPA: ʰʲɪʎˈveaːɾnəkʲ, "Marnock's church") is a large town and former burgh in East Ayrshire, Scotland and is the administrative centre of East Ayrshire, East Ayrshire Council. ...

and Dunfermline Athletic.

Playing career

Jefferies made more than 300 competitive appearances for Heart of Midlothian. The main highlight of his playing career was playing in the 1976 Scottish Cup Final, which Hearts lost 3–1 to Rangers.A turbulent end to otherwise tranquil and successful eight years for Jim Jefferies
''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

'', 12 January 2010. He also played in the famous 0-7 New Year Edinburgh Derby defeat against Hibernian. Jefferies eventually left Hearts in 1981, and spent the last two seasons of his career with Berwick Rangers.

Managerial career

Gala Fairydean

Jefferies left Berwick in 1983 to become a

East of Scotland Football League The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowland Football League. ...

club

Berwick Rangers

Jefferies returned to the Wee Gers as manager in September 1988. Despite a great deal of financial turmoil during that time, he turned the struggling team around to the extent that they set a club record of 21 games unbeaten in the league during season 1988–89.

Falkirk

In the 1990 close season Jefferies took over at

, guiding them to the

Scottish First Division The Scottish Football League First Division was the second tier in the Scottish football league system between 1975 and 2013. History The First Division was introduced in 1975–76 to replace the old Scottish Football League Division Two, as ...

title (and promotion to the

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) ...

) in

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

. Falkirk also won the

Scottish Challenge Cup The Scottish Professional Football League Challenge Cup,1993.

Heart of Midlothian

In August 1995, Jefferies returned to Hearts. He was manager of the Hearts team that won the

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, his greatest success in the game to date.

Bradford City

Jefferies moved south of the border on 20 November 2000 to replace

Chris Hutchings Christopher Hutchings (born 5 July 1957) is an English former footballer and manager. He played for a number of clubs including Chelsea and played more than 100 games for Brighton & Hove Albion and Huddersfield Town. He has managed in the Premi ...

as manager of then

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

side

. He was given the task of selling players by chairman

Geoffrey Richmond Geoffrey Richmond (born March 1941) was a football chairman of Bradford City from 1994 to 2002, and previously chairman of Scarborough. Career Richmond was born and raised in Leeds, where he attended Roundhay Grammar School. After leaving school, ...

and was unable to prevent them from going down. He resigned in December 2001, after a poor start to the season had left Bradford with no hope of a promotion challenge.

Kilmarnock

On 28 February 2002, he returned to management back in his native Scotland with

. He kept Kilmarnock in a respectable position despite the necessity of drastically reducing the club's wage bill, reaching the 2007 Scottish League Cup Final. Following

Alex McLeish Alexander McLeish (born 21 January 1959) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player. He played as a defender for Aberdeen during their 1980s glory years, making nearly 500 League appearances for the club, and won 77 caps for ...

's departure from Rangers at the end of the 2005–06 season, Jefferies was the longest-serving manager in the Scottish Premier League. He left Kilmarnock by "mutual consent" on 11 January 2010.

Return to Heart of Midlothian

Jefferies was appointed manager of Hearts for a second time on 29 January 2010, just hours after Csaba László was sacked from the position. Hearts finished third in the SPL in the 2010–11 season, having threatened the dominance of the

Old Firm The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, which are both based in Glasgow. The two clubs are by far the most successful and popular in Scotland, and the rivalry between them has become deeply em ...

until falling away after February. Jefferies and right-hand man Billy Brown were sacked by Hearts on 1 August 2011, after just two games of the

2011–12 Scottish Premier League The 2011–12 Scottish Premier League was the fourteenth season of the Scottish Premier League, the highest division of Scottish football, since its inception in 1998. The season started on 23 July 2011 and ended on 13 May 2012. A total of twe ...

season.

Dunfermline Athletic

Jefferies held talks with Dunfermline Athletic about succeeding Jim McIntyre as their manager and was appointed on 20 March. He was unable to keep the Pars in the top flight and were relegated at the end of the season. The following season in the

the club ran into financial difficulties and were placed in

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...

in March 2013. This led to a 15-point deduction penalty by the

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km sout ...

as well as many first-team players leaving. The effect of the points penalty saw Jefferies' side relegated to the Scottish Second Division through the

play-offs losing to

Alloa Athletic Alloa Athletic Football Club is a Scottish association football semi-professional club based in the town of Alloa, Clackmannanshire. Formed as Alloa in 1880, the football club shortly changed its name to Alloa Association, and then to Alloa At ...

in the two-legged final. Jefferies signed a new contract with Dunfermline in December 2013, after the club exited administration. He resigned as manager in December 2014 stating that he felt there was no other option than for him to leave the club. He also stated that

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; sco, Dunfaurlin, gd, Dùn Phàrlain) is a city, parish and former Royal Burgh, in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city currently has an estimated population of 58,508. Acco ...

was likely to be his last job in management.

Advisor roles

In February 2017, Jefferies joined the board of directors at Edinburgh City in a "sporting director" capacity. In September 2019 he suffered a heart attack whilst golfing. In July 2020, Edinburgh City confirmed that Jefferies had departed his role as sporting director to return to Hearts. During the 2020–21 season Jefferies worked as an advisor to club owner Ann Budge, assisting with player recruitment. He left the club during the 2021 close season.

Honours

Player

Heart of Midlothian *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1975–76 *

: (1) 1979–80 **''Runners-up'': 1977–78 *

Texaco Cup The Texaco Cup, officially known as the International League Board Competition, was an association football competition started in 1970, involving sides from England, Scotland, and Ireland that had not qualified for European competitions. I ...

**''Runners-up:'' 1970–71 * East of Scotland Shield: (4) 1972–73, 1973–74, 1974–75, 1975–76

Manager

Gala Fairydean Rovers * Scottish Qualifying Cup South: (4) 1983,

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

, 1987 *East of Scotland Qualifying Cup: (2) 1986–87, 1987–88 *East of Scotland (City) Cup: (1) 1987–88 Falkirk *

: (2)

1990–91 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

, 1993–94 *

Scottish Challenge Cup The Scottish Professional Football League Challenge Cup,1993–94 * Stirlingshire Cup: (2) 1992–93, 1994–95 Heart of Midlothian *

Scottish Cup The Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup,1997–98 **''Runners-up:'' 1995–96 *

Scottish League Cup The Scottish League Cup (also known as the Viaplay Cup for sponsorship reasons) is a football competition open to all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs. First held in 1946–47, it is the oldest national League Cup in existe ...

: **''Runners-up:'' 1996–97

Individual

* SFL Premier Division Manager of the Year: 1994–95 * SFL Scottish Manager of the Year: 1997–98 *Heart of Midlothian Hall of Fame: Inducted, 2009 **1998 Scottish Cup winning team, 2018 *Scottish Borders Sporting Hall of Fame: Inducted, 2019 *

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the top level league competition for professional football clubs in Scotland. The league was founded in 1998, when it broke away from the Scottish Football League (SFL). It was abolished in 2013, when t ...

Manager of the Month: August 2006 *

Manager of the Month: August 2008 *

Manager of the Month: November 2010

References

External links

*
London Hearts profile of Jefferies as Hearts manager
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jefferies, Jim 1950 births Association football defenders Berwick Rangers F.C. managers Berwick Rangers F.C. players Bradford City A.F.C. managers Dunfermline Athletic F.C. managers Falkirk F.C. managers Gala Fairydean Rovers F.C. players Heart of Midlothian F.C. players Heart of Midlothian F.C. managers Kilmarnock F.C. managers Living people People educated at Musselburgh Grammar School Sportspeople from Musselburgh Premier League managers Scottish Football League managers Scottish Football League players Scottish football managers Scottish footballers Scottish Professional Football League managers Scottish Premier League managers English Football League managers Footballers from East Lothian