....Peter Atherton as his assistant-manager at the Furness Building Society Stadium ahead of the new season.

Atherton joins the Bluebirds from his home-town club Wigan Athletic where he was their development squad manager. 

Atherton, 48, enjoyed a successful career as a player with almost 600 appearances in the Football League for Wigan, Coventry City, Bradford City and Sheffield Wednesday.

He is perhaps best known for his time captaining Wednesday where he made over 200 appearances.

He made nearly 100 appearances for the Bantams before a brief spell on loan at Birmingham City - his final club as a player was Halifax Town, appearing 14 times for them before being forced to retire due to injury in 2008.

Following his playing career, Atherton re-joined his home-town club as a youth coach before heading back to Halifax to become assistant-manager.

In recent years he returned to Wigan once again in 2014, coaching their under-18 side as they lost just six of 38 fixtures in the 2014/15 season.

In March 2017 he spent a couple of months as first-team assistant-manager at the DW Stadium following the departure of Warren Joyce and assistant Andy Welsh.