Asa Hartford will be remembered by Norwich fans as the scorer of the goal than won Norwich the 1985 Milk Cup final against Sunderland at Wembley. Despite this achievement, he rejected the one year contract offered to him and joined Bolton Wanderers in July 1985 as player/coach. Similar positions were held at Stockport County (June 1987), Shrewsbury Town (as coach July 1989 and manager in January 1990), Boston United (manager Feb 1991), Blackburn Rovers (coach in 1991, Reserves manager in 1992) and Stoke City (November 1993), He joined Manchester City as Assistant Manager to Alan Ball and held the caretaker manager's position during the autumn of turmoil in 1996 when it seemed that no-one wanted this position including Hartford.

The Manchester City managerial debacle was not the first time that he had received attention from the press. In 1971 a proposed transfer from West Bromwich Albion to Leeds fell through when a medical revealed that Asa had a hole in his heart. This did not deter him and he played over seven hundred games and gained fifty Scottish caps. His playing career was spent at West Brom (1967, 214 league games), Manchester City (1974, 185 league games), Nottingham Forest (1979, 3 games), Everton (1979, 81 league games), Manchester City (1981, 75 league games) before helding out to the USA to join the Fort Lauderdale Sun. On his return to England, he joined Norwich City in November 1984 for whom he played 28 league games, 40 in total and scored five goals. He opted for Norwich despite good offers from Preston, Swindon and Wolves.

Asa was reserve team coach under Kevin Keegan at Manchester City but was displaced when new manager Stuart Pearce brought in his own coaching line-up in May 2005. After a spell coaching at Blackpool, Hartford joined Macclesfield on 29th June 2007 as Assistant Manager. Hartford an manager Ian Brightwell were sacked in February 2008 to be replaced by Keith Alexander.

In April 2008 he was given a role with Accrington Stanley coaching the junior teams and the reserves, but was made redundant from this role in October 2011 and subsequently joined Birmingham City as a scout.

Hartford returned to Norwich City in the summer of 2012 as part of Ewen Chester's scouting team. He will look after the North West of England

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