STAN TERNENT is in line to become Town’s new manager – with popular former player Ronnie Jepson as his right-hand man.

The Galpharm club have approached Derby County for permission to move for the vastly experienced Ternent, 61, who is assistant to manager Paul Jewell.

Jepson, 44, quit as the manager of Gillingham last September and has been scouting for Crystal Palace, whose boss Neil Warnock brought him to Town in a £70,000 transfer from Exeter City in December 1993.

Ternent and Jepson, who have worked together at Burnley and Gillingham, could be unveiled as Town’s new management team before Saturday’s home League I clash with Walsall.

At Derby since November, former Blackpool, Hull, Bury, Burnley and Gillingham boss Ternent is contracted until the summer of 2011, but it’s believed he has a clause allowing him to leave if a manager’s job comes up.

That means Town will not have to pay compensation for a man who was expected to work with Jewell in guiding the already-relegated Rams back to the Premier League at the first attempt next season.

Instead he will be leading Town’s bid to mark next season’s exciting centenary campaign by winning promotion to the Championship, a feat last performed by Warnock in 1995, when Jepson formed a lethal frontline partnership with Andy Booth.

Ternent has twice won promotion from League I, with Bury (1997) and Burnley (2000).

He also took Bury up from League II in 1996, and helped establish Burnley in the Championship.

It seems those achievements put him ahead of the likes of Martin Allen and Chris Hutchings in the contest to replace Andy Ritchie, who left Town by mutual consent on April 1.

Ternent and Jepson will work closely with director of football development Gerry Murphy, who has been in caretaker charge since Ritchie left, and Town are also set to hand enhanced roles to academy coaches Graham Mitchell and Chris Howarth.

Murphy has praised Mitchell for his work with the first team, who are unbeaten in four games under the duo’s command and are chasing a third straight win against Walsall.

Gateshead-born Ternent, who was linked with Town as long ago as the early Nineties, played for Burnley, where he was a teammate of former Town boss Mick Buxton, and Carlisle.

He moved into coaching with Sunderland in 1974, and then worked under Bob Stokoe at Blackpool, where he was No1 between 1979 and 1981.

After coaching at Bradford City, his second spell as a manager came at Hull from 1989-91, and he was assistant manager at Chelsea and Bury before taking over the reins at Gigg Lane in October 1995, signing Jepson from Town for £40,000 in August 1996.

The striker later played under Ternent at Burnley, where he became Reserve coach in 2001, after his playing career was ended by an Achilles tendon injury.

Town vice-chairman Andrew Watson was chief executive at Burnley at that time.

When Ternent became manager of Gillingham in 2004, he took Jepson as his No2.