He is the chief recruitment officer at Luton Town, a club where he has spent a large portion of both his playing and non-playing career.
He has also held assistant manager positions at Colchester United, MK Dons and Millwall, and coaching roles at Wimbledon and Swindon Town.
Harford managed to head the ball from outside his own six-yard box, past England goalkeeper Peter Shilton, into his own net as Luton won the game and avoided relegation.
United manager Alex Ferguson has since said that he regretted not signing Harford, as he felt that it would have made a positive difference to their form in the 1991–92 season, when a shortage of goals in the second half of the league campaign cost them the title.
During his time at Chelsea, he scored the club's first goal in the Premier League, finding the net in the 84th minute of his debut at home to Oldham Athletic, who swiftly responded with an equaliser to force a 1–1 draw.
Harford would go on to make 60 appearances for the Dons, many in midfield, and scored his last professional goal at the age of 38 years and 34 days against West Ham United in 1997,[8] before he retired and moved into a coaching role at Selhurst Park.
In his role as first-team coach, Harford helped mastermind the successful season of 2001–02, which saw Luton storm to promotion back to Division Two.
[11] After the new Luton owners were forced out by supporters,[12] Harford returned to the club in a joint role as Director of Football, with responsibility for player recruitment, as well as first-team coach.
Out of work for only a short while, Harford teamed up with Andy King at Swindon Town in February 2005 in a deal that was due to run until the end of the 2004–05 season.
Harford then joined his former Derby County teammate Geraint Williams at Colchester United in the summer of 2006, becoming the club's assistant manager.
[17] Harford was linked with another return to Kenilworth Road following the sacking of Mike Newell in March 2007, but the job instead went to Kevin Blackwell.
Harford left Colchester to become assistant manager at Queens Park Rangers in June 2007,[18] before becoming caretaker after the departure of John Gregory.
[21] Harford led Luton Town to victory in the Football League Trophy final in a fiercely contested match against Scunthorpe United on 5 April 2009.
The tie ended 3–2 after extra time and saw a crowd of 40,000 Luton fans make the short trip down the M1 to Wembley Stadium.
[22] However, one week later in the league, the 30-point deduction imposed on the club proved too large an obstacle to overcome, and Harford's Luton succumbed to relegation to the Conference.
[34] In July 2021, it was revealed by Luton Town that Harford would be stepping away from duties at the club as he was fighting Prostate cancer and would begin radiotherapy treatment in August.