29-05-19 – News – John Pemberton is the new Harriers manager

Following months of waiting since Mark Yates was relieved of his managerial duties back on April 21st Kidderminster Harriers finally have a new manager.

Earlier today John Pemberton was appointed to the role after resigning his academy manager job at National League side Chesterfield this morning. He had been working in that capacity since September 2018 and became the caretaker manager of the 1st team following the dismissal of Martin Allen in December. When John Sheridan was appointed he reverted back to the academy again.

Pemberton, who has also had experience in academy and caretaker managing with Nottingham Forest and Bristol City, has signed a two year contract with us and somewhat surprisingly been given Russ Penn as his assistant. Where that leaves Jimmy O’Connor is open to conjecture with his playing days looking to be over and two years left on his contract.

The appointment of Pemberton isn’t exactly the choice of ‘top three’ managers that we had been lead to believe by the chairman Colin Gordon but I suppose he could be classed as one of the top three academy mangers although that is stretching it slightly. 

In his playing career he has turned  out for quite a few clubs with Crystal Palace being possibly the most successful after starting out professionally with Crewe Alexandra in 1985. He ended his career with them again in 1998 after also spending time at Leeds Utd and Sheffield Utd.

Hopefully it’s not too late for the new man to get cracking on rebuilding a Harriers side that finished a lowly 10th last season and the first thing that need to be done is get the signatures of Joe Ironside, Ed Williams and Fraser Horsfall down on their contracts.

BTW did you know there is a slightly more famous John Pemberton? That one invented Coca Cola a hundred and thirty years ago so you can’t blame our new manager for rotting your childrens teeth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stith_Pemberton  

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