The former Bristol City man standing in the way of Bristol Rovers at Carlisle United

It was only last October that Paul Simpson was in the dugout on the red side of Bristol.

Following a spell out of the game over the summer as the 55-year-old ex-Bristol City assistant head coach received treatment in his battle against kidney cancer, Simpson returned to work at Ashton Gate again last September.

A coaching reshuffle saw him and fellow assistant Keith Downing depart for pastures new at the end of October however, as City manager Nigel Pearson rung the changes, with Alex Ball promoted internally from the U23s set-up, and Curtis Fleming having joined his former Middlesbrough team-mate Pearson in BS3.

And so Simpson left the Robins but was all too soon being courted by other clubs, including home town side Carlisle United.

As he told BristolWorld recently, the chance to become a manager in the EFL again does not readily come up.

“I think it’s really hard to get a manager’s job so for somebody like me and in my position of having a long time out of being a manager, I needed to take a job that wasn’t going to be easy and there was risk involved in it,” explained the former World Cup winning coach at U17s level.

“This was an opportunity that came up that I was delighted to go and accept two-fold. One, it’s my home city and it’s a club that I supported as a kid and two, they were in trouble and I really wanted to try and help them,” he added.

And what a turnaround in fortunes it has been, after Simpson replaced another former Bristol City manager, Keith Millen, a month ago.

Since then Simpson has piloted the Cumbrians through five victories in their last six games, including wins over high-flying Northampton Town, and Leyton Orient at Brisbane Road.

The only loss has been a 1-2 reverse against Newport, and the fine form now sees the Brunton Park outfit a healthy 12 points clear of the relegation zone, with eight to play, and looking up the table.

Now Joey Barton must see his in-form Rovers get the better of Simpson’s side, with a long 544-mile round trip to the north west ahead.

The Gas boss does not worry about the trip up the M5 and M6 however, and has explained that the upturn in form has led to some good team-bonding of late.

“It just means you have to adjust training slightly just to make it work conductively with the travel up to Carlisle, but we’re looking forward to another test on the road,” explained Barton on Thursday.

“Another tough place to go and they’ve improved in recent weeks. The sun’s out, the grass is growing, the pitches are getting better – well, certainly ours are – and we’re looking forward to a good game of football,” he added on the game ahead.

Rovers could finish the weekend in the League 2 automatic promotion spots but they will have to get past a former Bristol City man to do that.