Lennie Lawrence
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Lennie Lawrence, (born December 12 1947), is a former football manager. He has managed Charlton, Luton Town and Plymouth Argyle. Most recently he managed Cardiff City, where he is now employed as a consultant. He has had a fairly successful career.
At the end of the 1985-86 season, he guided Charlton Athletic to the Second Division championship which meant that they were promoted to the First Division after some 30 years in exile. They remained at this level for four seasons until slipping back down to the Second Division at the end of the 1989-90 season. Lawrence remained in charge for one more season before handing over the reins to Alan Curbishley, who is still in charge today after 14 years.
Lawrence, meanwhile, was named as Middlesbrough's new manager before the start of the 1991-92 season as successor to Colin Todd. Under Lawrence's stewardship, Middlesbrough finished Second Division runners-up in his first season as manager and gained promotion to the new Premier League. But they struggled in 1992-93 and were relegated at the end of the season. Lawrence remained in charge until the end of the 1993-94 season, after which he handed in his resignation and made way for Bryan Robson.
The next stop for Lennie Lawrence was at Bradford City in Division Two, where he was appointed for the 1994-95 season in place of Frank Stapleton. A mid table finish was unremarkable but Bradford made a good start to his second season, the 1995-96 season, and were mounting a serious promotion challenge. Lennie Lawrence left Bradford in December 1995 to be succeeded by Chris Kamara, who would guide them to promotion as playoff winners at the end of the season. He moved to Luton Town, who were bottom of Division One.
Lennie Lawrence was unable to save Luton Town from relegation to Division Two at the end of the 1995-96 season and they failed to gain promotion the following season after losing to Crewe in the playoff semi-finals. Lawrence remained in charge until the end of the 1999-2000 season when he finally resigned, after four-and-a-half years at the helm had failed to inspire a promotion challenge.
He made a quick return to management for the 2000-01 season with unfashionable 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. But Lennie Lawrence quit soon afterwards to take up his sixth managerial post, this time with Division Two side Cardiff City.
Cardiff City had just won promotion to Division Two, and they just missed out of the Division Two playoffs at the end of the 2001-02 season. But they made it one better in 2002-03 by reaching the Division Two playoff final and beating Queens Park Rangers to reach the upper half of the English league for the first time in almost 20 years. Lennie Lawrence and his team have defied the odds and remained in this division ever since, with safety almost certain with the 2004-05 Coca-Cola League Championship campaign virtually over. At the end of the season Lawrence announced that he was stepping down as manager of Cardiff.