Don Barker (Dream Team)

Don Barker is a character in the series Dream Team, played by Jon Morrison.

Don Barker had a reputation of being a hard-nosed, tough manager, renowned for making teams achieve promotion in the lower leagues. After Harchester United were relegated, he was seen as the ideal manager to return them to the Premier League.^[1][2][3]

He was first approached by Eli Knox to become manager of the team, with Eli taking over as the owner of the team. He persuaded Knox that in buying Harchester, he would effectively be buying a Premier League team, as they would be getting promoted at the end of the year.

Don was appointed manager of the team, and brought with him his daughter, Jodie Stone and his son-in-law and hardman defender, Frank Stone.

His hard-nosed reputation was proved true when he continually bullied younger members of the team such as Clyde Connelly and Tommy Valentine. He eventually drove Connelly to suicide which caused Fenton to fall out with him and leave the club on loan. Barker is widely regarded as the most unpopular character in the history of the series.

Demise

Upon the return to Harchester of their prodigal son Karl Fletcher, the two never got on. Fletch felt that he was the best option for manager, and set out to rid the club of Barker.

His first move towards this goal was bringing in a friend from his childhood days, Carl Caskey, to play in the team. The plan was that Barker would accept a bribe, then this would get him fired from the club. This backfired, however, when sneaky agent Joel Brooks turned the deal to his and Don's favour.

The eventual reason for Don's departure was that he was filmed blackmailing Caskey's wife Nicole into sleeping with him. When this tape was shown to the Harchester team, they made him leave.

Don wasn't about to lie down though; he subsequently became Director of Football at West Ham, and tried to make sure Harchester wouldn't achieve promotion. As part of this, he bribed Karl Fletcher into trying to poison Harchester star Ryan Naysmith.

When Fletch was caught for this he was imprisoned, but later bailed out by his teammates. Both Fletch and Don ended up in the Dragon's Lair, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. There was a confrontation in the changing rooms, which culminated in Barker killing Fletch.

Realising what he had done, and too afraid to face the consequences, Barker took his own life—and much of the Harchester team's - by driving into the team coach with all the players on board.

References