Southend United have appointed former Norwich City full-back Kevin Bond as their new manager until the end of the season.
The former Portsmouth, Tottenham and QPR assistant boss – who made 161 appearances for City between 1976 and 1981 – replaces Chris Powell, who was sacked last week.
The Shrimpers have gone 12 matches without a win and are only above the League One relegation zone on goal difference, with academy boss Ricky Duncan and under-23s manager Kevin Maher having taken charge of a 2-0 home defeat to Shrewsbury on Saturday.
A club statement read: “Both Ricky and Kevin anticipated this interim position would be short-lived and for the need for them to return to their existing responsibilities, the board felt that more fundamental changes needed to be made.
“The club has today appointed Kevin Bond as manager for the remaining six games of the season and shall review the position at the end of the season.”
Bond emerged at Norwich while his father, John, was in charge at Carrow Road and made his debut during the latter stages of the 1975-76 season as City stabilised after promotion back to the top flight – winning the club’s Player of the Season award in 1980, having scored 11 goals.
John left for Manchester City in October 1980 after a poor start to a season which would eventually finish in relegation to the Second Division and Kevin was soon surplus to requirements under Ken Brown, despite having been captain since the start of that campaign.
ARCHIVE: Norwich City top 100 appearances: Kevin Bond (91)
After a spell in the USA with Seattle Sounders, the full-back joined his father at Manchester City for £350,000 in 1981 and enjoyed a successful top-flight career, also playing for Southampton, before spells at Bournemouth and Exeter and retiring in 1996 to begin a varied coaching career.
He has worked under Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham, QPR and Birmingham but did have a spell as manager at Bournemouth between October 2006 and September 2008, during a time of financial crisis and point deductions which left the Cherries in League Two.
More recently Bond has had spells at Hong Kong Pegasus, as well as stints as a coach at Aston Villa and Birmingham, and had been scouting for Portsmouth ahead of his opportunity at Southend.
He takes charge of the Essex side ahead of a trip to play-off chasing Fleetwood on Saturday.
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