Play-Off Challenge For Compton Old Boy

Jim Barron will be keeping a close eye on the fortunes of former Wolves coach Jerry Gill tomorrow as the non-League season moves towards a belated conclusion.

The two know each other from their time together at Birmingham during the Trevor Francis managerial era and were reunited professionally at the start of the 2019-20 season virtually 12 months ago!

Gill, who joined Wolves in 2015 as under-18 head coach, is now manager of Bath City, who face Dorking at Twerton Park tomorrow in a Vanarama National League South play-off.

And Barron will have his fingers crossed that they come through this behind-closed-doors eliminator and take another step towards a place in the elite of non-League football.

“If I was at a top club, Jerry is someone I would take along with me,” Barron said this afternoon. “I knew him as a player at Blues and his attitude was always spot-on, so he would be brilliant at taking the training.

“We are living down in Berkshire again these days, so he had me watching a few games for him in the M25 area early in the season to give him an insight on future opponents.

“I think they were fourth in the table when the matches stopped a few months ago and apparently they have decent facilities there. He is from the West Country as well, so he would love to take them up.”

Gill has had a varied career in the game and, before his Wolves seasons, had spells as academy manager at Kidderminster, youth coach at Bristol Rovers, as a scout and academy coach at Norwich and as manager of Weymouth.

He also made a single appearance for the England National Game XI during a playing career that brought him around 250 appearances with three League clubs – Blues, Northampton and Cheltenham.

Such were the good habits Barron referred to that Gill played on at professional level past his 38th birthday, with Bath and Yeovil among the other clubs he appeared for.

He was born in Clevedon, Somerset, and turns 50 next month.

Barron, a 1960s hopeful at Molineux and later assistant to Graham Hawkins, was part of Everton’s scouting set-up for several years until a change of regime there and remains open to assignments on a less formal basis the other side of lockdown.

“I don’t want anything too regular but would go to some matches if asked,” he added. “I see plenty of matches on TV but do miss the banter and seeing people with not having been to games in the last few months.”