Brass, Woods and Courtney

Last updated : 16 June 2015 By Tony Scholes

Brass has played for Bury, managed them on a caretaker basis and has twice been assistant manager, firstly with Alan Knill and more recently with current boss David Flitcroft.

He left Gigg Lane with Knill to work with him at Scunthorpe and Torquay but moved back to Bury to become Flitcroft's assistant at the end of 2013.

He's held that position until this week with the appointment of Chris Sedgwick to join the coaching team, a move that has seen Brassy elevated to the position of the club's  Head of Football Operations.

It's a similar role, in many ways, to that which Frank McParland has landed at Burnley and Bury have confirmed that Brass will oversee first team operations and the academy operations and will head recruitment for both.

Meanwhile, Chris Woods, who arrived in Burnley in 1997 as goalkeeping coach and ended the season as first team goalkeeper, is back in football with West Ham.

When he left Burnley following the appointment of Stan Ternent as manager, he made the immediate move to Everton where he was goalkeeping coach until the end of the 2012/13 season before moving to Man United along with David Moyes.

During that period he also served as goalkeeping coach for the USA national team, but for the last year  he's been out of the game.

West Ham have dispensed of the services of four of Sam Allardyce's team with three of the four already having moved into new jobs at Blackpool, Leyton Orient and Leeds.

The other is Bobby Mimms who Woods replaces and the new man said: "I'm thrilled to be joining West Ham. I've known Slaven (Bilic) from my time at Everton and we go back a long way even though we have gone on our different paths since he left Goodison Park."

Finally, there is further news on Duane Courtney who, having been released by Alfreton, recently joined Sutton Coldfield Town. That was three weeks ago with manager Neil Tooth describing the signing as massive for the club.

Yesterday, Courtney left after a change of heart and has instead signed for Corby Town without ever playing a game for Sutton Coldfield.

Tooth said: "Duane has received an offer too good to turn down at Corby so unfortunately he has moved on. They have offered him a two year contract on more than double what we offered so to be honest I don't really blame him."

The lucky manager is Tommy Wright at Corby. He said: "Bringing Duane into the club is a great coup for us as he has been in high demand since leaving Alfreton this summer. I am delighted to get his signature and secure another key signing ahead of next season."