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Brian Laws

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

Brian Laws (October 14, 1961 in Redcar, England) is the manager of Sheffield Wednesday football club and a former professional footballer.

Playing career

Laws was part of Brian Clough's successful Nottingham Forest team for six seasons, playing mainly as right-full back. 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."[1]

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.[2] At the time, Grimsby were in a good league position, but results afterwards were poor and a bad start to the next season lead 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[3] 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[4] 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.[5]

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.

Honours

Nottingham Forest (player)

Scunthorpe United (manager)

Managerial stats

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

Notes

  1. ^ LookSmart's FindArticles - Football: Folk lore man Laws picks up pieces and repays faith - Independent, The (London), Jan 28, 2001, by Simon Turnbull
  2. ^ When managers attack - BBC Sport
  3. ^ Scunthorpe sack Laws - BBC Sport
  4. ^ Laws back at Scunthorpe - BBC Sport
  5. ^ Laws takes over as Sheff Wed boss


Preceded by Grimsby Town Manager
1994 - 1996 		Succeeded by
John Cockerill (caretaker)
Preceded by Scunthorpe United F.C. manager
1997-2004 		Succeeded by
Russ Wilcox (caretaker)
Preceded by
Russ Wilcox (caretaker)
 Scunthorpe United F.C. manager
2004-2006 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Sean McAuley (caretaker)
 Sheffield Wednesday F.C. manager
2006- 		Succeeded by
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