Started his career at Liverpool, before moving on to play at Norwich City, Bournemouth, Cardiff City and Chester.
Played for Norwich City in the League Cup final of 1973 when they lost 1-0 to Tottenham and was in the Cardiff City team that beat Tottenham 1-0 in the FA Cup Third Round on 7th January 1977.
Came to Tottenham on the coaching staff when appointed as reserve team manager 1984. Became assistant manager under Terry Venables and took over as joint manager when Venables became Chief executive with Ray Clemence in 1993.
Left Spurs in November 1994 to join Liverpool to be assistant manager to Roy Evans before moving to Nottingham Forest with Peter Shreeves as joint assistant managers under Ron Atkinson in 1999. Not lasting long at the City Ground, he moved on to his alma mater Norwich City as assistant manager the following year under Bruce Rioch, then Bryan Hamilton and then Nigel Worthington, as the team gained promotion to the Premier League in 2004. Under new boss Peter Grant, Livermore retained his assistant manager's post, but he left the club in 2007 and linked up again with Worthington, this time at Leicester City towards the end of the 2006-07 season.
Despite gaining promotion to the Championship, neither manager nor assistant were offered new deals, so they left the club and Doug has not worked in coaching since, but is a consultant for a firm of football agents.
A Welsh international, he later went on to help on the coaching side with the national side.