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Brian Laws (born 14 October 1961) is an English former footballer who was most recently the manager of Scunthorpe United. Playing as a defender, Laws made over 100 appearances for each of Burnley, Middlesbrough, and Nottingham Forest. In 1994, Laws became player-manager of Grimsby Town before taking a similar position with Scunthorpe United in 1997. For the next nine years, Laws served as manager of Scunthorpe, guiding them to promotion twice. In 2006, he accepted the managerial role at Sheffield Wednesday, lasting three years in the job during which time Burnley approached him for their managers job when Steve Cotterill left, but were put off by the compensation demanded by Wednesday. Wednesday later struggled with financial problems and he was sacked in December 2009 after a poor run of results. After only a brief spell out of the game, Burnley appointed Laws as their manager, giving him his first chance to manage in the Premier League after Owen Coyle left the club for Bolton in January 2010 and took the entire management team with him. He was sacked by the club in December that year. Laws returned to manage Scunthorpe United in 2012 only to be sacked in November 2013. ==Playing career== Born in Wallsend, Northumberland, Laws began playing football at the famous Wallsend Boys Club. 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 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. After a short period Laws 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. On 14 July 1986, he famously applied to the Football League to have his contract cancelled and enable himself to leave Middlesbrough on a free transfer, as they were in liquidation and on the verge of losing their Football League status and going out of business at this stage. However, they were saved from closure the following month and Laws remained part of the team who won promotion in the next two seasons to take them from the Third Division to the First.〔()〕 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〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title = Brian Laws summary )〕 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." Laws was at Forest at the time of Hillsborough disaster in the 1989 FA 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, Laws scored an own goal; the game ended 3-1 to Liverpool. Forest were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 1992–93 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Brian Laws」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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