Asa Hartford Appointed as Assistant.

Asa Hartford has been named as Ian Brightwell’s assistant at the Moss Rose.

Alongside Brightwell’s playing experience, Hartford has also played almost 500 times, for West Brom, Everton, Manchester City twice, Norwich and Bolton. He has also managed to rack up 50 international appearances for Scotland, including two world cups.

During his time at Norwich he was winner of the League Cup in 1985, scoring the winning goal.

He has also played for Fort Lauderdale in the USA, Stockport, Shrewsbury and Boston United.

His playing days ended as his managerial career began at Stockport County in 1987 where he managed for two years, leaving in the summer of 1989 after two lower mid table finishes and joined Shrewsbury as assistant and was promoted to manager in January of 1990, guiding them to 11th position. He left the following January and shortly afterwards joined the training staff at Blackburn Rovers under Kenny Dalglish.

In 1993, he returned to Stoke City as assistant manager and joined Manchester City as assistant to Alan Ball in 1995.

His next taste of management came during the crisis years at City where he became caretaker manager for eight games, winning four, following the departure of Alan Ball. Eventual replacement Steve Coppell walked out within 30 days and Coppell`s assistant Phil Neal lasted just as long after that.

Hartford remained on the City coaching staff under Frank Clark, Joe Royle and Kevin Keegan holding a variety of coaching roles and was Reserve Team Manager when he was let go by Stuart Pearce in 2005.

He then joined the coaching staff at Blackpool where he remained until May 2006 to do scouting work.

He will bring a high level of experience to the club with management at this level as well as playing experience at the very top of the game. His 50th cap for Scotland came against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup.