Coles and Mesure leave Rovers as part of Barton’s shake-up
BRISTOL Rovers coaches David Coles and Jack Mesure have left the club, the Bristol Post understands.
Goalkeeping coach Coles has been relieved of his duties, while Mesure is set to take up a role at a Premier League club.
Both joined Rovers in 2020 under Ben Garner, with Mesure named assistant manager and Coles replacing Adrian Tucker after he took up a role in Morocco.
Mesure was then replaced as assistant manager by Clint Hill when Joey Barton took charge in February, but the former Crystal Palace and Chelsea academy coach remained a part of the first-team staff.
This is the second time Coles has parted company with Rovers this season. He first left the club in January for “personal family reasons”.
Following Paul Tisdale’s sacking two weeks later, Coles - who was still under contract at the Memorial Stadium - returned to The Quarters and worked under Barton’s regime until the end of the season.
Coles is highly rated in the football fraternity after coaching spells at Portsmouth, West Ham United , Bristol City and abroad, and word of his exit made it to professional social media platform LinkedIn, with Manchester United academy goalkeeping scout Tony Parks saying he was “flabbergasted” at Rovers’ decision.
“Colesy is one of the finest GK coaches in the country with 30 years experience and a CV to match,” Parks wrote.
“This is where I have to make the distinction between GK coach and GK trainer. Colesy is the in the first group. He nurtures, develops helping young goalkeepers find the
pathway from youth to first-team football at all levels of the game.
“From Asmir Begovic to his latest protege Jed Ward, making his debut on Saturday. In my opinion the goalkeeping trainer is only interested in session design and how it looks to others who watch the session, with little or no coaching taking place.
“If anyone out there is looking for a top coach, look no further than Colesy.”
Barton has made no secret of the fact he believes sweeping changes to personnel and structure are required to rebuild after relegation to League Two, and further departures appear possible.
“For sure,” Barton replied when asked last week if changes to his coaching staff were likely.
“There’s lots of things that you’ve inherited that you’ve had to go with because you can’t really change things when you’re going Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday.
“It was relentless when we first came in and you have to be careful not to meddle with it and mess with it even though you know looking at it that it’s not effective and it’s not efficient.
“We knew there would be a settling in process and you need to allow people time to showcase what they can do, their strengths and weaknesses. After a 12-14week period we’re able to evaluate that having worked with people.
“Obviously we have a natural option to change because we’re moving into a training ground and I think that is an opportunity to draw a line under what has been a chaotic year for the world and certainly a chaotic year for the football club.”