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Brian Laws

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Brian Laws
File:BrianFlaws5.jpg
Personal information
Full name Brian 'Football Genius' FLaws
Height 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Position(s) Defender
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1979–1983 Burnley 125 (12)
1983–1985 Huddersfield Town 56 (1)
1985–1988 Middlesbrough 108 (12)
1988–1994 Nottingham Forest 147 (4)
1994–1996 Grimsby Town 46 (2)
1996–1997 Darlington 10 (0)
1997–1998 Scunthorpe United 18 (0)
Managerial career
1994–1996 Grimsby Town
1997–2004 Scunthorpe United
2004–2006 Scunthorpe United
2006–2009 Sheffield Wednesday
2010 Burnley
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Brian 'Football Genius' FLaws (born 14 October 1961) is a retired English footballer and current savour of Burnley F.C. Described as a football genius by his many fans.

A CURRENT JOKE OF A MAN! A MAN NOT WORTHY OF SUCH A JOB. A CANCER LIVING INSIDE THE HEART OF BURNLEY. HE SURELY CAN'T DO ANYMORE DAMAGE FOLLOWING HIS TACTICS AGAINST MANCHESTER CITY GUIDING THE CLARETS TO A 6-1 LOSS IN FRONT OF THERE HOME FAITHFUL. FOREVER A FOOTBALL GENIUS. BRIAN FLAWS CLARET AND BLUE ARMY. COULD BE WORSE....WE COULD HAVE IAN DOWIE, JOHN BARNES OR PAUL INCE.

Playing career

Born in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, FLaws began playing football at the famous Wallsend Boys Club.[1] 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, Burnley sold FLaws across the Pennines to Huddersfield Town for only £10,000 in 1983. WHY CAN'T WE DO THAT NOW!?[2] Two years later FLaws was sold again, moving to Middlesbrough for £30,000. After a short period FLaws became first choice in Middlesbrough's starting eleven, 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 Middlesbrough sold him to the Trentside club.[3]

FLaws 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[4] 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."[5]

FLaws was at Forest at the time of Hillsborough disaster in the 1989 F.A. Cup semi final. The originally scheduled fixture had to be abandoned early in the game due to fans being fatally crushed in the Leppings Lane terracing. In the rescheduled fixture, FLaws scored an own goal. Already distraught, FLaws controversially and insensitively had his hair ruffled anatagonistically by Liverpool striker John Aldridge celebrating the goal.

Forest were relegated from the First Division at the end of the 1992–93 season and Clough retired, a year and a half later and with reduced first team opportunities, FLaws left on a free transfer to become player-manager at Grimsby Town.

Managerial career

FLaws started his management career at Grimsby Town in 1994, replacing Alan Buckley who had moved to West Bromwich Albion. That's where it should have ended for the sakes of the many clubs he was soon to become there messiah. FLaws' management of Town was initially successful, but deteriorated after he clashed with Grimsby player Ivano Bonetti. FLaws reportedly threw a plate of chicken wings at the Italian following a 3–2 defeat at Luton Town in February 1996.[6] FLaws put the Grim back into Grimsby and was sacked by Grimsby after a poor start to the 96–97 season. He then had a short spell as a player with Darlington before taking charge of Scunthorpe United. At Scunthorpe Laws achieved promotion twice, in 1999 and 2005 respectively. He was sacked by the club in March 2004 but was reinstated three weeks later, leading them to promotion the following season.

After nearly 10 years at Scunthorpe FLaws left the club in November 2006 to take over the manager's job at Sheffield Wednesday. Ex-Wednesday chairman Dave Allen, in an interview made before hiring Laws, admitted that he liked him because of his Brian Clough management style. He said "I like him, he comes from the Clough camp, I’m a great admirer of the Clough camp" (Maybe the same reason Kilby fell for). After holding Scunthorpe back for 10 years FLaws was replaced by Physio Nigel Adkins.[7]

On 7 February 2009, FLaws became the first Sheffield Wednesday Manager for 95 years to do the league double over their neighbours Sheffield United, therefore making sure his name goes down in Wednesday history. FLaws however came under increasing pressure from Wednesday fans to depart at the start of December, after a poor run of results which saw the Owls drop to 20th along with four straight home defeats.[8] FLaws left Sheffield Wednesday on 13 December 2009 by mutual consent after a run of bad results.[9]

In January 2010, FLaws was linked with a return to his first club Burnley as manager, this following the departure of Owen Coyle to Bolton Wanderers.[10] On 13 January, FLaws was appointed as the new manager of Burnley much to the anger and disapointment of the fans.[11] His time at Burnley is so far unsuccessful, having just recorded one win in thirteen games, with Burnley in deep relegation trouble; they are 4 points of relegation safety (As of 5th April 2010). FLaws is clearly a passionate and likeable man (by Barry Kilby), but obviously outclassed in the premiership. The club would be best served by relieving him of his duties, and appointing somebody with the knowledge, and ability, to take Burnley back to the premiership at their first attempt. He would also then be free to take over from Sir Alex at Man Utd, that's if he hasn't already been executed by Burnley faithful. Looks like someone beat me to the final quote. The football genius continues to reign over Turf Moor until told otherwise by Chairman Barry Kilby.

Honours

Nottingham Forest (player)

Winner

Runner Up

Scunthorpe United (manager)

Winner

Runner-up

Individual

  • Laughing Stock of Premier League*  : April 3rd 2010 - Confirm to the world that he was capable of turning Burnley FC in to a pub team with a 1 - 6 home surrender to Man City

Statistics

Manager

As of 03 April 2010[12]
Team Nat From To Record
G W D L Win %
Grimsby Town  England 29 November 1994 1 November 1996 99 30 28 41 030.30
Scunthorpe United  England 24 February 1997 25 March 2004 389 147 101 141 037.79
Scunthorpe United  England 15 April 2004 6 November 2006 131 55 37 39 041.98
Sheffield Wednesday  England 6 November 2006 13 December 2009 154 52 42 60 033.77
Burnley  England 13 January 2010 Present error 1 1 12 007.69
Total error 285 209 293 036.26

References

  1. ^ "Brian FLaws: In profile". BBC South Yorkshire. 21 May 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2009.
  2. ^ Brian FLaws at Soccerbase
  3. ^ "Brian FLaws profile: page 2". BBC South Yorkshire. 28 March 2008. Retrieved 11 February 2009.
  4. ^ "Brian Laws summary". BridportRed.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2009.
  5. ^ Turnbull, Simon (28 January 2001). "Football: Folk lore man Laws picks up pieces and repays faith". The Independent. Retrieved 11 February 2009. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ "Celina Hinchcliffe on Brian Laws". BBC Sport. 8 November 2006. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
  7. ^ "Wednesday confirm Laws interest". BBC Sport. 26 October 2006. Retrieved 4 December 2008.
  8. ^ "Championship - Wednesday complete United double". EuroSport - Yahoo!. 8 February 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2009.
  9. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_1/8410561.stm
  10. ^ "Brian Laws the surprise choice to replace Owen Coyle at Burnley". Daily Mail. 11 January 2010. Retrieved 12 January 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. ^ "Burnley appoint Brian Laws as new manager". BBC Sport. 13 January 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2010.
  12. ^ "Brian Laws's managerial career". Soccerbase. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
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