Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SPURS TO CHERRY-PICK KING
Borough boss Revell: My wise sidekick is ex-charlton chief Lawrence.. he knows how to win when there’s 15 minutes left
AT the club who came back from the dud, rookie boss Alex Revell will lean on his “half-past four man” after Stevenage’s great escape.
Even Revell’s football consultant Lennie Lawrence, the sultan of brinkmanship in his Houdini pomp, never pulled off such an audacious reprieve as Stevenage when the firing squad had already convened.
After winning just three games out of 36 last season, they were bottom of the pile and relegated out of the League.
But when Macclesfield’s accumulation of docked points, for repeated failure to pay wages on time, left them below the water line after a recount, Boro were reinstated.
Now they have installed 72-year-old Lawrence as a sage parrot on Revell’s shoulder to guide him through the matrix.
When Lawrence was Charlton boss in the 1980s, he pulled off more improbable escapes than Clint
Eastwood at Alcatraz, Tim Robbins at Shawshank and Steve Mcqueen from Stalag Luft III between them.
And in a six-goal thriller with Pompey, new-look Stevenage – the first club to be relegated and promoted in the same summer – had the air of a club relishing their parole.
Revell, once a robust striker who scored one of the great Wembley goals in a play-off final for Rotherham six years ago, is delighted with his new double act.
He said: “I had only been a manager for two games when the Covid-19 virus brought everything to a halt – I’m just a beginner and it’s been an interesting start.
“I spoke to former Crystal Palace manager Dougie Freedman, who calls Lennie his ‘half-past four man’ because he would often turn to him for advice at 4.30 on a Saturday afternoon about how to change the course of a game.
“That’s what I expect to be doing on a regular basis. If there is a tight corner in English football where Lennie hasn’t managed to wriggle free, it’s not worth knowing.
“I love proving people wrong and at Stevenage we need to prove we deserved our reprieve, but as a first-time manager I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers on my own.
“I want him to be ruthless with me and tell me straight if he doesn’t agree with my decisions. We’ve been given a second chance – let’s make the most of it.”
At the Half-past Four Man’s appointed hour on Saturday, Stevenage had been pegged back after leading 3-1 in a whirlwind opening
half-hour at the Lamex. They steadied the ship, only for Pompey keeper Craig Macgillivray’s three saves in the penalty shoot-out to break their hearts – but there was no mistaking the appetite of ‘The Revenant’ and his team for their task.
Revell added: “The insecurity of the summer was tough because you want to tell players what league they are going to be operating in and how you intend to take the club forward.
“But it was also a chance to reflect where we went wrong last season and to change our culture – the bottom line is that we lost too many games, we got used to losing and that’s the hardest habit to break in football.
“We needed to reinvent ourselves as a club, redefine our DNA and reconnect with our community because we let too many people down.”
In truth, the rebirth of a club began with Boro’s exemplary meals-on-wheels service during lockdown, delivering hundreds of lunches every week to the vulnerable and shielded across Formula One king Lewis Hamilton’s home town. Chairman Phil Wallace promised to underwrite the huge catering project – even if Boro could not afford it.
“That showed what we are capable of achieving,” said Revell. “We may not be the biggest club in the country, with the biggest fan base, but we’ve got a real beating heart.
“The players we brought in haven’t come here for the money or a meal ticket. They are hungry to succeed, they believe in our potential and there is a real bond of trust throughout the organisation, from the chairman to the academy.”