The appointment of David Dunn as manager of Barrow AFC means some of their players will be reacquainted with someone they’ve already worked under.

Wing-back Josh Kay is one of those players, even though his experience with Dunn only extends to a few weeks in autumn 2017 after he was released by Barnsley.

Strangely enough, it was after a trial period under Dunn at Blackburn Rovers that he signed a contract with Chesterfield in January 2018, when he first worked with former Bluebirds boss Ian Evatt.

A week after Evatt’s departure for Bolton Wanderers, Dunn was named as the man who will lead AFC through their first season in the English Football League and Kay is looking forward to seeing what he will bring to Holker Street.

Kay said: “I’ve heard only positive things about him. I do actually know him from after my time at Barnsley because I went to Blackburn for about three weeks, so he was training me with their under-23s.

“I do kind of know already what he is about and he comes across as a really nice guy, but he knows his stuff as well.

“He’s obviously played at the highest level and I’m just looking forward to getting going under him.”

Kay is coming off the back of what is comfortably the best season of his young career after nailing down a place on the left wing during Barrow’s promotion campaign in the National League.

The 23-year-old took a while to find his best position while Evatt was in charge, but he credits his former Spireites teammate for making him a more confident player.

Kay said: “He used to make you feel like you were the best player in the world because his man-management was excellent.

“We were always going out thinking we were unbeatable, and it showed.”

Kay’s confident nature means he is prepared to push himself outside of his comfort zone at times, not least when he recorded a message, in Spanish, for podcast La Media Inglesa, although part of it may have been lost in translation.

Kay said: “Basically, I saw a tweet that Ryan [Sutherland, press officer] put up and I saw this message from one of the lads saying ‘where can I listen to this podcast.’ Ryan put ‘unless you know Spanish, then you can’t’ and then some fan commented ‘was this Josh Kay, by any chance?

“I had a bit of banter and said I was fluent in Spanish and then I just absolutely peppered in being asked to do this message, when I can’t speak English very well, let alone Spanish.

“I said to Ryan ‘4,000 likes and I’ll do it’ because I thought there was no way it was getting that many, but it just blew up.

“That attempt I did was a joke, by the way, and Ryan put it on, so I’m not happy with him!”