HOW about this for an awkward situation?

Barry Smith, the former Dundee manager, found himself in a job in which interviewing and then criticising the bloke sitting in his old office was part of the contract.

Not only that, but Smith, who had been unfairly sacked by the club he captained for years, believed there was a chance he would have to cover and comment about current incumbent Paul Hartley getting the boot from Dens Park.

What happened was this. Smith, 42, was out of football after leaving Aldershot Town in April 2015. He is not someone for whom an easy life was ever going to be an option and so he applied and got a job as a football journalist as Dundee’s Evening Telegraph.

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Plenty of former footballers and manager have worked on both sides of what at times feels like a great divide; however, usually these former players become columnists. Few down the years have ever lowered themselves to get their hands dirty in the nitty-gritty of the daily slog football hacks have to go through.

That lasted a few months. He is now back in management at East Fife and while the pen has been hung up, he looks back on his brief time in the business with great fondness.

“I have always liked a challenge,” Smith tells me in his final few days as a working journalist before concentrating full-time on East Fife. “It was a great experience and made me think of my days as a player when I could be a bit precocious about my dealing with the press lads.

“It was really good for me. I have no regrets at all. I actually stayed on at school after signing on as a professional at Celtic so I do have qualifications. I learned there was to be a vacancy at the papers, applied for the job and got it.

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“Listen, I knew it was going to be very different but thought it would be good for me to see the other side of it. As with everything I’ve done, I gave my best and wanted to see if I was going to be any good at it.

“I’m not the one to say if I was good or not but they kept me on. They didn’t kick me out at least.”

Smith was treated appallingly by Dundee. He took over after the club had been placed into administration and were in what was then the First Division with a 25-point deduction. He led the team to safety, a 23 game unbeaten streak was the key, against every imaginable odds.

The next season Dundee finished second but were not ready to go up and yet found themselves returned to the top tier in place of Rangers. The team struggled and Smith was sacked. It was a scandal.

Fast forward a few years and Smith is back at Dens Park, only this time to speak to Hartley about a job he knew only too well.

“I did find it awkward interviewing managers because I am a manager,” said Smith. “It’s not about looking for a story but you do need something to write about.

“Paul was going through a hard time and I was never going to call for his head of have a real go. I have been there and, anyway, that’s not me. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not the kind of guy.

“But in saying all of that, it was difficult to be positive when there wasn’t a lot of positivity around. It’s just that chanting for the head of a manager is tricky because it’s not something I would like to happen to me.”

It’s always interesting to gauge what players think of the media once they are retired and come over to the dark side. It would be of great benefit for young footballers to get some proper training about the press, maybe even from the journalists, so they can learn a bit about how it all works.

“Journalists have to ask difficult questions,” said Smith. “Certainly it has made me a lot more understanding about the job and why certain things are done. Manager have every right to protect their club but the journalists have a job to do.

“I don’t think any question is asked out of badness. There does need to be a better understanding from football’s point of view. Nobody is out to get you now. There has to be some common ground."

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Smith is happy to be back on the side football he knows best. East Fife are a fine club and he seemed to be the only candidate once Gary Naysmith moved on to Queen of the South.

“Gary gave a glowing report about me to the board,” revealed Smith. “I went for an interview, they asked me if I wanted it and that was that.

“It’s a good club, a community club and well run at that. They won’t spend money they don’t have – good for me considering what happened before - and we have a great ground of players. It’s a small squad but I’ve been genuinely bowled over by their attitude and ability.”

Smith has taken some kicks before but he was never going to knock back a job he fancied.

“It is very hard to explain,” he said. “It is in you. You live and breathe football. I have pride and ambition. I still want to succeed in management. I know what can happen in the job but this is what I want to do."