At the age of 19 and in only his third game, Barry was up against a formidable Leeds United side featuring the legendary likes of Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter in front of some 58,000 at Maine Road.

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Despite it being one of the highlights of his playing career, to this day Barry has not been able to watch a re-run of the match, which ended in a 1-0 victory for Leeds.

The former midfielder recalled: "The one thing that has stayed with me from that game was the chance I missed to score. I was so distraught that I wouldn’t watch it on TV and I have never seen it from that day to this."

Having experienced the despair of losing out in such a major cup semi-final as a player, Barry is desperate not to relive that awful feeling as a manager with Hednesford Town.

On Saturday, The Pitmen are at home to Aldershot Town in the second leg of the Semi-Finals of The FA Trophy, in partnership with Carlsberg.

The winner will go through to the Final of non-League’s prestigious equivalent to The FA Cup at Villa Park on Sunday, 23rd May.

Although the Southern League Premier Division side go into the decider with a 2-0 lead over the Conference giants, Barry is experienced enough to know not to take anything for granted.

He said: "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would come away with a 2-0 win. I would have settled for the tie just being alive, but it’s more than alive.

"It’s given us the opportunity to grasp the Final spot. I am not taking anything for granted, because I still think Aldershot are a very good side and are quite capable of scoring plenty of goals.

"They were possibly a little below par on the day and we rose to the occasion, played to the game plan and came away with a result.

"We are halfway through. It may well be the scorer of the first goal has the upper hand. If they get it, they are back in the game big time. If we get it, the tie could be over."

Barry came back from The FA Cup Semi-Final defeat the following season to win the League Cup with Wolves. In 1975, he moved to Coventry City where he enjoyed four years before switching to Derby County in a £350,000 transfer.

After three years with Derby, he had a two-year spell in Hong Kong before returning home to play for Burnley and then Swansea.

A year back in Hong Kong followed before returning to Wolves, initially as a player and then as assistant to manager Graham Turner. They won the Division Four and Division Three Championships in back-to-back seasons, as well as the Sherpa Van Trophy in 1988.

He left Wolves for another of his former clubs, Coventry City, where he was Community Officer for nine years. During that time, the opportunity arose to become manager at Aberystwyth Town, a role he took on part-time, guiding them into Europe, and then full-time.

After two years he returned to the Midlands and started work as a lecturer/coach at North Birmingham College before becoming assistant manager at Hednesford Town.

After a spell as assistant at Stafford Rangers, Barry returned to Hednesford Town and helped steer the club away from relegation last year before being appointed manager at the start of this season.

Whilst the club is enjoying its best ever run in The FA Trophy, life has been a struggle in the league, something which continues to baffle the 50-year-old.

Hednesford have played more games - eight, including two replays - than any of the other semi-finalists to get this far. They went into the first leg against Aldershot Town as underdogs, but came out on top.

Barry said: "I had a report sent to me from Nigel Clough at Burton Albion who had played them two weeks before. My youth coach watched them in the same game and I saw them against Shrewsbury Town.

"Based on that, we formulated a game plan whereby we would try to counter the pace they had up front. We soaked up quite a bit of pressure and it worked.

"The tie could go either way. To win semi-finals you need to be mentally and physically strong and we were that at Aldershot. We were nothing like that against Dover Athletic this week - and that scares me."

He hopes his players will not have to experience the feeling of losing a semi-final as he did. However, 31 years on, and Barry says he finally feels ready to watch that defeat.

He said: "If anyone has got a copy, I would love to see it!"