Brian Laws

Brian Laws

Personal information
Full name	Brian Simon Laws
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Position(s)	Right Back
Team information
Current team	Sheffield Wednesday (Manager)

Brian "The Colonel" Laws (Born October 14, 1961 in Wallsend, England) is manager of Sheffield Wednesday football club and a former professional footballer.

Playing career

Brian Laws began playing football at the famous Wallsend Boys Club in his native Newcastle upon Tyne. Aged 17 he signed his first professional contract with Burnley, joining the club as an apprentice. Over the following four seasons he made 181 appearances for the club and, despite his defensive role, scored fifteen goals. However, during this period the club's fortunes were in decline and, following relegation back to the old Third Division, Bunley sold Laws across the Pennines to Huddersfield Town for only £10,000 in 1983. Two years later Laws was sold again, moving to Middlesbrough for £30,000. With 'Boro Laws began to cement his place in the first-team and in his three seasons at the club he twice helped the team to promotion, firstly to the Second Division and then, just a year later, up to the old First Division. However, the club's finances were not strong, and when Nottingham Forest offered £120,000 for his contract in 1988 Laws jumped at the chance to move to the Trentside club.

Laws was part of Brian Clough's successful Nottingham Forest team for six seasons, playing mainly as right full-back. He is sometimes credited as Forest's second-best right-back of all time behind regular England international Viv Anderson. During this time he won the League Cup twice and was runner up in the League Cup and FA Cup. Clough's first words to his new signing were "I've never seen you play, son, I'm going on the recommendation of Ronnie Fenton. So if you're crap, Ronnie signed you. If you're good, I signed you."

Forest were relegated from the First Division at the end of the 1992-1993 season and Clough retired, a year and a half later and with reduced first team opportunities, Laws left on a free transfer to become player-manager at Grimsby Town.

Management

Laws spent just under two years as manager of Grimsby, but his relationship with the club turned sour after Laws reportedly threw a plate of chicken wings at veteran Italian winger Ivano Bonetti which fractured his cheekbone, after a 3-2 defeat away to Luton Town in February 1996 (The nickname "The Colonel" was derived from this incident as a KFC reference by fans at later club Sheffield Wednesday). At the time, Grimsby were in a good league position, but results afterwards were poor and a bad start to the next season led to Laws being sacked.

After a short period as a player with Darlington, Laws joined Scunthorpe United, less than a month later Mick Buxton was sacked as manager and Laws took over. He hung up his boots after one season. During his time with Scunthorpe, Laws lead them to twice to promotion from bottom division of the Football League, in 1998-99 and 2004-05.

Laws was sacked in March 2004 due to the club's poor league position, after a run of only three wins in 17 games. However, after a boardroom struggle he was reinstated less than a month later and led them to promotion the following season.

On 6 November, 2006 Laws was appointed manager of Sheffield Wednesday, with assistant Russ Wilcox also following from Glanford Park.. He is the clubs 14th manager in 11 years.

Trivia

Laws' post-match interviews on BBC Radio Humberside generated a cult local following. His favourite phrase was "90 percent", such as "we had 90 percent of the chances but we just couldn't score".

During a television interview in 2004, BBC Look Leeds presenter Peter Levy made a comment regarding Laws' apparent physical resemblance to Pop Idol judge Simon Cowell, much to Laws' annoyance.

Laws is one of the featured managers in the internet viral sensation 'Pass It On', created to publicize the launch of 24 bespoke football designs by Mitre. One for each of the clubs in The Championship.

Honours

Nottingham Forest (player)

• League Cup Winner: 1989, 1990
• League Cup Runner Up: 1992
• FA Cup Runner Up: 1991

Scunthorpe United (manager)

• Division Three play-off winners (fourth tier): 1998-99.
• League Two runners-up (fourth tier): 2004-05.
• Football League One Manager of the Month: April 2005, September 2006

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Grimsby Town		November 29 1994	November 1 1996	99	30	41	28	30.30
Scunthorpe United		February 24 1997	March 25 2004	389	147	141	101	37.78
Scunthorpe United		April 15 2004	November 6 2006	131	55	39	37	41.98
Sheffield Wednesday		November 6 2006	Present	32	15	10	7	46.87

External links

• Brian Laws at Soccerbase
• Brian Laws management career statistics at Soccerbase