City’s loss was Nottingham Forest’s gain, with the enigmatic Brian Clough identifying the Scot as the perfect replacement for another Tartan tour-de-force, Archie Gemmill.
“I’d met Cloughie before I actually signed when I went to Mottram Hall with Tony Book. I signed in the summer and didn’t see him or Peter Taylor again until pre-season training started,” said Hartford.
“I played all the pre-season friendlies and things seemed to be going well. He called me in his office and told me to watch how other midfielders played like John McGovern and he was obviously trying to keep me grounded.
“The season started, we won all three of our league games and when the table was published for the first time after the third match, we were top. It was two points for a win, but we had six points. Things seemed to be going great. Cloughie used to come in at half-time and he’d come in after a few minutes and everyone would look down, tie their bootlaces or whatever – anything to avoid eye contact with him. I remember his saying’ ‘Hey Fatty and you big head!’ – at Larry Lloyd and Kenny Burns – and Kenny had just won the PFA Player of the Year award! ‘I’m paying you two good money to get close to their forwards, so get out and do it!’ He would just nail it straight away whereas other managers would go on for the full 10 minutes.
“I was living in Wilmslow at the time, and next up, we had a game against Blackburn Rovers in the League Cup, so I drove to the team hotel in Blackburn from my house and had lunch with everyone and partway through, Peter Taylor came over and said, ‘I’ll have a chat with you after you’ve had your lunch.’
“When we spoke, he said, ‘What would you say if I told you Everton are interested in you, and we are prepared to sell?’
“I was taken aback somewhat, but I suppose I was trying to be smart and just said, ‘Well I suppose I need to speak to Gordon Lee [Everton manager] then, don’t I?’
“Taylor said, ‘Good. He’ll be here in half-an-hour!’ It seemed it had all been set up and I was the last to find out. I went to see Clough before I spoke with Lee and just asked whether the reason was Forest were rumoured to be signing Andy Gray for £1.5 million, and had they needed the money? Cloughie told me not to worry and that and that I’d be fine because I’d be getting 5% of the transfer fee. I was thinking ‘yeah, minus 80% in tax so thanks very much!’
“I’d only played three games, had done well and didn’t really get it. He'd fallen out with Archie, but he sold him too soon because he went on to have three good years with Birmingham City, but he did that with a few players over the years.
“I was enjoying my time with Everton, but Howard Kendall came back and I think he was looking to get Peter Reid in. City had been in the FA Cup final a few months before I think John Bond saw an opportunity and I jumped at the chance of coming back to the club in 1981.”
Hartford rejoined a City with plenty of talent, but also with a number of ageing stars. Despite scoring in a 3-1 Boxing Day win over Liverpool and going into 1982 as the league leaders, the decline began, and Bond’s City eventually finished mid-table.
Trevor Francis was sold after just one season and Bond, unable to turn things around, quit early in 1983 and Hartford was part of the team that were relegated on the final day of the 1982/83 season.
Hartford, wo had left West Brom after their relegation in 1974, was now facing his first campaign outside the top flight.
“It was great to be back, but when Billy McNeill took over, things went a bit sour,” he said.
“Billy had always gone out of my way to praise me when I was younger, but I had an ankle injury when he came to Maine Road, and I ended up missing quite a few games.
“I remember I was at home in Wilmslow when the phone went and it was Robert Maxwell who was a newspaper tycoon and chairman of Oxford United. He said, ‘I’ve spoken with your chairman, Mr Smales – as he called him - and I’ve been given permission to speak to you. I am going to be taking over a big First Division club soon and I’d like to take you, Jim, and Colin with me’ Jim Smith was the manager, and he had Colin Todd as his No.2, but I wondered what he was on about. It turned out he tried to buy Manchester United not that long after, but I couldn’t understand why nobody at City had informed me first. Billy said I should have been told, but I said I wasn’t interested in dropping down a couple of divisions to join Oxford anyway. Or Manchester United -though I didn’t know that at the time.
“I told Billy I wanted to stay and fight for my place – my contract was winding down anyway – and I called Robert Maxwell to tell him as much. He came onto the phone, I said that I was sorry, but I was staying at City and he just listened and said, ‘Thank you.’ And hung up! That was the only thing he said.”
With his contract at an end in the summer of 1984, Asa took the chance to join Fort Lauderdale Sun in the USA where he planned to build up his fitness and enjoy a bit of sunshine in the process.
“It was a busman’s holiday, and I was just there to play a bit and get fit – they had players like ‘Nene’ Cubillas who I had played against in the 1978 World Cup, and I enjoyed it for a few months before coming back and signing for Norwich. I ended up scoring the winner in the 1985 League Cup final against Sunderland – well it would be my goal nowadays as it was on target, but it was classed as an own goal because of a sizeable deflection.
“After that, I played for Bolton, Oldham and Stockport and as Mick Channon once said, once you start sliding down that glass mountain, you pick up a lot of clubs on the way. I enjoyed all my clubs having said that. My last club was Shrewsbury Town where I was player-coach under Ian McNeill, and I took over as caretaker and one of my players was a big gangly centre back called David Moyes!”
From player-coach, caretaker boss to player manager, there is much more to come from Asa who would return to City for a third time in 1995, this time as Alan Ball’s No.2 and would remain at the club for another decade.
We will discover whether it was third time lucky for Asa Hartford in part 2 of our look back at his career in a few weeks’ time…
Feature: David Clayton