Lennie Lawrence

Infobox Football biography
playername = Lennie Lawrence
fullname = Robin Michael Lawrence
dateofbirth = birth date and age|1947|12|12|df=yes
cityofbirth = Brighton
countryofbirth = England
height =
position =
years =
clubs =
caps(goals) =
manageryears = 1978
1982–1991
1991–1994
1994–1995
1995–2000 2000–2001 2002–2005 2006–
managerclubs = Plymouth Argyle
Charlton Athletic
Middlesbrough
Bradford City
Luton Town
Grimsby Town
Cardiff City
Bristol Rovers (Director of Football)

Robin Michael "Lennie" Lawrence (born December 12 1947 in Brighton, England) is a British football manager. He has managed a number of English clubs and one Welsh club in a coaching career spanning over 30 years. He is currently Director of Football at Bristol Rovers. He is one of a select few managers to have managed over 1,000 games.cite news | title = Lennie Lawrence manager profile | publisher = League Managers Association| date = | url =http://www.leaguemanagers.com/manager/profile-175.html
accessdate =2007-12-14]

Lawrence never played league football. He turned out at non-league level for fc|Croydon, Carshalton Athletic and fc|Sutton United. He got his first managerial appointment at Plymouth Argyle as caretaker. He later worked as a coach at fc|Lincoln City, helping them win promotion from Division Four in the 1980–81 season.

Lawrence moved to fc|Charlton Athletic as reserve-team manager, and was later promoted to full-time manager in 1982. During his first few years in charge, the club was in a poor financial situation and came close to going out of business in 1984, and even left its home ground, The Valley, in 1985. Despite this, Lawrence not only kept Charlton in the Second Division but gained promotion to the First Division in 1986, ending Charlton's 29-year absence from the top-flight. With limited resources, he kept Charlton at this level for four years, before being relegated in 1990. He remained in charge for a further season.

Before the start of the 1991–92 season, Lawrence moved on to manage fc|Middlesbrough. Under his stewardship, Middlesbrough finished Second Division runners-up in his first season as manager and gained promotion to the new Premier League butut they struggled in 1992–93 and were relegated at the end of the season. Lawrence remained in charge until the end of the following season before incoming chairman Steve Gibson replaced him with Bryan Robson.

Lawrence then joined afc|Bradford City at the beginning of the 1994–95 season. After a mid-table finish in his first season, Bradford were challenging for promotion in his second season in charge before he left to manage struggling fc|Luton Town in the division above. Lawrence was unable to save Luton from relegation to Division Two at the end of the 1995–96 season, which saw them replaced by former club Bradford. He remained in charge at Kenilworth Road until 2000 when he resigned after failing to take Luton to promotion. [Cite news
title = Lennie leaves Luton
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2000-07-04
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/l/luton_town/819300.stm]

He made a quick return to management shortly after the beginning of the 2000–01 season with Division One side Grimsby Town. They avoided relegation and made a reasonable start to the 2001–02 season, and caused an upset in the League Cup third round by knocking out holders Liverpool 2–1 after extra time at Anfield, scoring with a Phil Jevons wonder-goal in the last minute. [Cite news
title = Grimsby stun Liverpool
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2001-10-09
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/worthington_cup/1584478.stm] However he was sacked later in the season after Grimsby dropped to the bottom of the table. [Cite news
title = Grimsby sack boss Lawrence
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2001-12-28
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_1/1731896.stm]

After a short while out of the game he joined Division Two side fc|Cardiff City as a consultant. Owner Sam Hammam had made it clear to manager Alan Cork that he expected back-to-back promotions, which it did not look like Cork was going to deliver. Eventually Cork was sacked, and Lawrence took over the manager's chair. In his first full season in charge, Lawrence took Cardiff to promotion after beating fc|Queens Park Rangers in the play-off final. [Cite news
title = Cardiff seal promotion
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2003-05-25
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_2/3051017.stm] He remained at Ninian Park for a further two years before resigning in 2005. [Cite news
title = Cardiff boss Lawrence steps down
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2005-05-23
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/cardiff_city/4573173.stm]

After acting as a consultant at Cardiff for a while, he was appointed Director of Football at Bristol Rovers, working alongside coach Paul Trollope in a two-tier managerial structure. [Cite news
title = Rovers unveil Trollope & Lawrence
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2005-11-07
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bristol_rovers/4413544.stm] In the pair's first full season in charge, Bristol Rovers won promotion into League One after winning the League Two play-offs. [Cite news
title = Trollope & Lawrence pen new deals
work = BBC
accessdate = 2007-12-14
date = 2007-08-10
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bristol_rovers/6934860.stm]

Managerial stats

References

External links

* [http://www.soccerbase.com/managers2.sd?managerid=901 Lennie Lawrence managerial statistics] at soccerbase.com