After over 18 months out of the game, Phil Brown has returned to management, taking over at Kidderminster Harriers.
The former Preston North End manager was last in the dugout at Barrow for the last couple of months of the 2021/22 season.
Kidderminster Harriers are currently rock bottom of the National League, the fifth tier of English football.
Phil Brown will be best remembered by many for his spell at Hull City. He took them up to the Premier League in 2008 via the play-offs. The first ever time they had been in the top flight and he kept them up in their first season there.
After a tough second season in the Premier League Brown left. Then came his spell at Preston in January 2011. North End were struggling in the Championship after a poor year under Darren Ferguson.
Despite a few signs of a recovery, ultimately Preston succumbed to relegation that season and Brown stayed on in the hoping of bouncing straight back up.
A lot of the squad changed and ‘Brown Phil’ brought in the likes of Clarke Carlisle, Thorsten Stuckmann and Juhvel Tsoumou, whilst Graham Alexander returned to the club.
After a draw and a loss in the opening two games, Preston then won the next seven. An attacking trio of Neil Mellor, Jamie Proctor and Iain Hume was proving to be lethal.
Injuries to Mellor and Hume hindered the side though. We lost eight from the next nine games and Brown didn’t know how to get the best out of his team. The former Derby County manager departed in December of that year. Alexander and David Unsworth took charge for five matches before Graham Westley arrived on the scene.
Phil Brown achieved play-off success with Southend United the same year that Preston finally got promoted back into the Championship in 2015. He spent close to five years with The Shrimpers, before a short spell with Swindon Town.
He then spent some time in India with Hyderabad FC (previously known as Pune City) before returning to Southend, who fell out of the Football League with Brown unable to save them in the six games left of the 2020/21 season he took charge of.
He did keep Barrow in League Two the season after though, and now faces another relegation battle with Kidderminster.
The Harriers were promoted via the play-offs last season but they are currently seven points away from safety having won just four games this season. Brown loves a challenge though, and has had plenty of success in his career. Unfortunately none of that was seen at Preston.