![[Home]](../../gfx/m_home.gif)
![[Up]](../../gfx/m_up.gif)
![[Mail]](../../gfx/m_mail.gif)
![[Help]](../../gfx/m_help.gif)
Asa Hartford |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(50/4)Asa Turned PRO with West Bromwich Albion in 1967, and made his league debut with them a year later. A transfer to Leeds United was cancelled when it was discovered that he had a hole in his heart. Instead he moved to City for £250 000, and soon manifested his position as a strong midfielder. As a City-player he won a regular place in the Scottish nationals squad, culminating with the World Cup finals in Argentina.
Amazingly enough; City decided to sell Asa the year after he was voted City player of the year, and in fall 1979 Brian Clough took him to current champions Nottingham Forest for 500M pounds. But only after a few weeks he was tranferred again, this time to Everton for 400M. He made 74 appearances for the Liverpool-club before John Bond brought him back to Maine Road in 1982 for 350M. Anyhow, Asa couldn't help us escape relegation, and eventually he lost his place in the team to Neil McNab before the 1983/84 season. After that he only made 7 appearances in the first team, so he moved to U.S.A. and Fort Lauderdale just before the end of the season.
But Asa's playing career didn't end with Fort Lauderdale. He played the summer for them in 1984 and then played the 1984/85 season for Norwich City, with whom he won the League Cup in 1985 - I think it was called the Milk Cup then. His deflected shot won the match 1-0 for Norwich.
He left Norwich City in May of 1985 and played for Bolton Wanderers for a while, reaching the final at Wembley with them in 1986 of the Freight Rover Trophy.
He subsequently became player/manager of Stockport County, but was sacked after only two years in charge there. He then went to Shrewsbury Town as player/assistant manager, and subsequently became the manager, appointing John Bond as his assistant. Upon leaving Shrewsbury he was out of work for a short time, and was then appointed to the Blackburn Rovers training staff, working with Kenny Dalglish, where he remained for two seasons. At the end of 1993 he joined Joe Jordon at Stoke City as assistant manager and subsequently worked under Lou Macari there as well. In 1995 he turned down a flattering offer from Blackburn, and instead decided to join City for the third time in his life, now as an assistant manager to Alan Ball.
When Ball resigned at the beginning of the 96/97 season, Asa took over as caretaker until the new manager arrived. But as it turned out both Steve Coppell (the new manager) and Phil Neal (his assistant) didn't last long in their postions. So Hartford's attatchment to the club continued also into the Clark-regime, now as a coach.
Asa won the FA-Cup with W.B.A. in 1968 (?) and was League Cup Winner with City in 1976, and in 1985 with Norwich. He won 50 caps for Scotland (35 while playing for City) and scored 4 goals.
Provided by: Svenn A. Hanssen, svenn@hanssen.priv.no and Paul Handley