Ex-boss Lennie at Palace

Ex-Cardiff City boss Lennie Lawrence has moved out of the grandstand back to the dugout after becoming assistant manager at Crystal Palace.

Has a player he never played league football he plied his trade in non-league football until getting a break has caretaker at Plymouth Argyle. He when on to become coach at Lincoln City and after helping them to promotion he moved on to be become boss of Charlton Athletic. He later when on to managed Middlesbrough, Bradford City, Luton Town, Grimsby Town and Cardiff City.

Lawrence came to Cardiff as a consultant to help support the then manager Alan Cork who was under pressure to give the then chairman Sam Hammam back to back promotion. Cork was set a drifted (Feb 2002) after a run of bad results that damage the dream of the promotion a move that gave the dugout to Lawrence. Cardiff did make the play-off that season only to losing to Stoke City in the play-off semi finals.

In his first full season in charge of the Bluebirds he reached the play-offs again and victory over Bristol City in the semis led to a final against QPR at the Millennium Stadium. An extra-time 1-0 victory thanks to Andy Campbell saw Cardiff into the Championship.

After two more season in charge he was side lined back into a consulting role but after a while moved on.

He did have to go far for his next job as he took up the post of Director of Football at Bristol Rovers, working alongside coach Paul Trollop. He remained at Rovers until leaving the club on 12 May 2010. He spent a short time with non-league Carshalton Athletic in a football consultancy role before he was appointed technical director at Hereford United to assist new manager Jamie Pitman.

Now he as was appointed assistant manager at Crystal Palace, to support new manager Dougie Freedman.

Footnote: Alan Cork is now back with old mate Mickey Adams at Sheffield United, as assistant. It’s not the first time these two tandem at manager and assistant they were together at Fulham, Swansea City, Leicester City.