Ex-Sheffield United and Chelsea man Jon Harley: Chaotic Portsmouth was mayhem and ended my playing career - now I'm back

Undoubtedly there were numerous highs for the once £3.5m swashbuckling left-back, as England Under-21 honours, an FA Cup winners’ medal and Premier League outings with Chelsea and Fulham cheerfully testify.

Yet coaching has yielded far greater satisfaction than any part of a playing career which consisted of 482 appearances and 15 goals.

The spark which ignited Harley’s true passion can be traced back to January 2013, when an ignominious Pompey exit amid the club’s financial implosion brought the curtain down on his lengthy Football League playing existence.

Fortune smiled with the former Sheffield United and West Ham man was back in work the following day, kickstarted into a career change by a timely offer from Chelsea’s Academy to work twice a week on a casual basis, paid per session.

Harley would spend the next decade at Cobham, honing his coaching skills in the youth system, before returning to Fratton Park as John Mousinho’s assistant in February 2023.

The double-act has proven transformational for Pompey, steering them into the Championship after an agonising 12-year absence.

And Harley has never been happier in football.

‘After the whole Pompey thing and then going into Chelsea, my motivation to play dropped and my motivation to coach increased. Genuinely I prefer coaching to any point of my playing career - by a long shot as well,’ the 44-year-old told The News.

‘Not that I didn’t like playing, it’s just that I love the coaching side of it, I just love it. It’s everything about it, the whole process, you get quite passionate about it.

‘Match-days are a big one, you’ve put on sessions the whole week, bringing everyone together going into that game, hopefully having made a difference tactically or the player has improved a certain area of his game.

‘I’m not saying we have improved someone’s crossing, they must want to do it, we’re just there supporting them. Suddenly everything comes together on that Saturday, the adrenaline and emotion you go through on a match-day is second-to-none.

‘I love coaching at Pompey because we’ve got such a good group of staff around us, we all enjoy being together, while the boys are also such a good group. It’s not even cheesy saying it, I think this is the best playing environment I have ever experienced.

‘I know success can bring that, but I’m unsure whether the culture within the group has brought success or if it has been the other way round.

‘I enjoyed my playing career, I really did, but I prefer this.’

Approaching his 33rd birthday, the much-travelled Harley was without a club in the summer of 2012.

The previous season he had featured in League One at Notts County, although there was also a loan spell at League Two Rotherham midway through before being brought back to Meadow Lane.

With his contract now having expired, the Liverpool-based left-back was seeking his next opportunity - and fate would position him on the path to Fratton Park.

It was a club newly-relegated to League One under Michael Appleton, while administrator Trevor Birch declared all first-team players were required to be removed from the wage bill by August 10, 2012 to prevent liquidation.

Certainly there were plenty of vacancies among the playing ranks on the pre-season tour to Benahavis, Malaga, with Harley among those triallists present in Spain.

He added: ‘My contract had run out at Notts County and I was a free agent, just looking around. That same summer, our family went on holiday to Antalya in Turkey with a footballer friend of mine Andy Gray and his family, including his son Archie, who is now grown up and at Spurs.

‘Also at this nice all-inclusive hotel was Steve Allen, Pompey’s physio, who I knew from my spell on loan at Wimbledon years before. We got talking and he mentioned how I should come for a trial - and he spoke to Michael Appleton about it.

‘What I discovered was a club in absolute mayhem. Not that I complained too much, I was coming to the end of my career and this was a step up from Notts County, as well as a great opportunity.

‘However, we were forever being told one thing and then everything kept changing. Supposedly the club was fine, a takeover was coming in, and financially there would be absolutely no problems.

‘Then two days before the League One season, we went into Appleton to sign our deals and he basically said “This is all there is”. They were meant to be one or two-year deals, instead we were looking at a month at a time.

‘After I had left Watford in 2010, my kids were at an age where they were starting school and we wanted to settle down somewhere. We’d lived in Liverpool before, my wife’s from there anyway, so we decided to go back to settle. My next club was Notts County, so I travelled from there.

‘Now I was at Pompey, but I couldn’t move down from Liverpool for a month-to-month deal, I have a family, it was a complete non-starter. So I continued to live there.

‘All of us were like that, a lot of lads would also stay in hotels. Basically, on a Sunday night, depending on what players we had at that point, I would drive down in my mini and pick up team-mates along the way.

‘There was Lubomir Michalik in Manchester, Scott Allan in Birmingham, usually four of us in total heading back down to Portsmouth.

‘Brian Howard was also at Pompey and good to me personally. He lived down New Forest way and would let me stay in his house from time to time to save on hotels.

‘While I was on trial we had a week’s pre-season in Malaga, playing a friendly in Gibraltar against their national side. The pitch was awful, an old sand-based hockey surface which was rock hard.

‘They had a tactic where they would kick the ball long and it would hold up, whereas as a defender you’d think the ball was just going to run through to your keeper - and it didn’t. We were awful, there was no denying that, but it was a difficult pitch to play on.

‘We lost 4-0 and it felt like something out of Mike Bassett: England Manager: “Three cheers for their number 10” - and then we signed him! That was Liam Walker.

‘It was crazy during that period at Pompey, but, in a weird way, that was kind of the good thing about it, the chaos brings you together.

‘We didn't do well on the pitch, I know that, but there was something quite nice about that whole time as well, especially as the club survived, which was to the huge credit of the fans.’

With the purported new ownership failing to emerge as the 2012-13 campaign wore on, Pompey remained in administration and languishing in a precarious financial state.

In addition, manager Appleton had walked out for Blackpool with his assistant Ashley Westwood in November 2012, to be replaced by first-team coach Guy Whittingham on a caretaker basis for the foreseeable future.

When Whittingham was subsequently instructed to slash his playing budget at the turn of the year, it signalled the end of Harley’s Fratton Park career - at least in playing terms.

Following 26 appearances and one goal, his one-month contract wasn’t renewed, departing in January 2013 along with Mustapha Dumbuya, Howard, Michalik, Luke Rodgers and Lee Williamson.

Fortunately for Harley, who held a Uefa B coaching badge, he immediately landed coaching work with Chelsea’s Academy.

He said: ‘Pompey was the strangest time of my career and I remember Guy calling me in and saying “That’s it, we’re not offering you another contract”. 

‘It wasn’t Guy’s fault, although I do tell him all the time he was the one that retired me! I recall that moment and thinking “This could be it, it could be me done in football”.

‘Notts County at home was meant to be my last Pompey game, but it was called off with a waterlogged pitch. So I packed up my belongings and left Fratton Park.

‘The following day, I received a message from Chelsea’s Academy manager. We had previously been in touch - now he was offering me the chance to coach there on the Monday, with a week planned.

‘After 2-3 days, he told me “Look, we can carry this on for another 3-4 weeks if you want”, which was my chance to really get a foot in the door.

‘I was being paid per session - and then Maidstone offered me the chance to continue playing for £100 a game, which was extra pocket money. It’s where I’m from, while I was good friends with the manager, Jay Saunders.

‘I played seven or eight times but, if I am being honest, I knew at that point that retirement was definitely the right thing. It was good timing, a few weeks in Chelsea were asking whether I wanted to stay for the rest of the season.

‘In the summer of 2014, I became full-time - and remained there before coming back to Pompey a decade later.’

Mousinho’s Pompey appointment in January 2023 sparked a search for an assistant which lasted for almost four weeks.

The following month, Harley was unveiled as the Blues’ selection overseen by sporting director Rich Hughes. representing a highly inexperienced coaching set-up in first-team terms.

Nonetheless, with the pair having previously worked closely alongside each other on a Uefa Pro Licence coaching course at St George’s Park, a connection had already been established.

Within 14 months the duo had led Pompey back to the Championship as League One champions.

Harley added: ‘At Chelsea, I became the under-15s’ assistant coach and then gradually progressed, working with the under-16s, under-18s and then under-21s.

‘Then I came out of coaching and was heading a project focusing mainly on goal kicks, but also helping out with elite talent scouting, which involved watching loads of Brazilian and Portuguese football.

‘At the same time I had passed my Uefa A, earned another diploma in elite coaching from the Premier League, then I went on a Pro Licence course, where I met John (Mousinho), with Rich appearing there a couple of times too.

‘We actually worked on a project together, consisting of putting together a game plan where we analysed an England game. That was kind of the moment we realised that not only did we work well together, but we were quite well aligned in how we thought.

‘It was a good partnership, while we could also challenge each other in a healthy way. That obviously stuck in John’s head.

‘Although I was still enjoying it at Chelsea, I had missed being on the pitch coaching, so when this opportunity came about I jumped at it.

‘Definitely the right decision!’