Graham Barrow, an experienced former professional footballer and Football League manager, was briefly associated with Exeter City in a support role at the start of Gary Caldwell’s term as manager. 

Graham, who had worked as Gary Caldwell’s assistant manager at Wigan Athletic, played non-league football for Chorley (his hometown team), Southport and Altrincham before turning professional at a relatively late stage with Wigan Athletic in 1981. A midfielder, he eventually made over 400 league appearances for Wigan and Chester City over the following thirteen seasons. He then entered management with Chester, followed by a period in charge of Wigan, before spells at Rochdale, Chester (again) and Bury.

Returning once more to Chester in the role of assistant manager in 2006, he subsequently performed a similar function at Altrincham prior to heading once more to Wigan in 2009 to work alongside Roberto Martinez. Retained under successive managers, Graham took charge of the first-team on a ‘caretaker’ basis on several occasions including after the dismissal of Gary Caldweii in October 2016. Eventually leaving the club two years later, he subsequently spent a couple of seasons taking on assistant roles at Wrexham followed by Shrewsbury Town.

With Gary Caldwell arriving at Exeter City in October 2022, the club announced the appointment of Graham Barrow as ‘tactical insights coach’ in January 2023 (at the same time as his contemporary Malcolm Crosby was appointed chief scout). Tending to work remotely, he was only in post for a matter of weeks before, at the age of sixty-eight, returning once more to Wigan as assistant manager.

Still at the club three years later, he again stepped into the breach as ‘caretaker manager’ following the departure of Ryan Lowe only to be - with a certain degree of irony - replaced by Gary Caldwell returning from Exeter City.