Brian Kidd, the former Manchester United player and assistant manager, has joined the oil-fuelled revolution at Manchester City as technical development manager for the club’s academy. Kidd will act as both coach and mentor in the club’s academy, returning to the game after a brief spell as Portsmouth’s assistant manager under Tony Adams and Paul Hart last season.
Kidd played more than 200 league games in an 11-year playing career at Old Trafford, scoring in the 1968 European Cup final as a teenager. He later had three seasons as a player across town at City, before spending a decade in coaching roles under Sir Alex Ferguson, eventually becoming the manager’s assistant.
But Ferguson voiced his doubts about Kidd’s ability to succeed him at Old Trafford in the book Managing My Life. Kidd responded by damning the book as a fantasy. The row, which erupted in 1999 when Kidd was manager of the soon-to-be relegated Blackburn Rovers, ruined a successful relationship between the two men.
Later Kidd took on coaching roles at Leeds United, where he suffered significant abuse from the club’s fans, England, Sheffield United and Portsmouth.