When Lennie beat to take Boro back
LENNIE Lawrence will know exactly how Chris Wilder is feeling in the battle to take Boro into the Premier League this season.
With hopes high on Teesside, everybody believes Wilder’s eventual new-look team will make a positive push for promotion.
Lawrence faced similar expectations, but mainly from the Boro board of directors, who were certain he was the right man to take Boro back into the top flight. So Lennie was appointed in the summer of 1991 with promotion in mind.
This placed plenty of pressure on the new boss, who had earned the nickname Houdini for his achievements at the other end of a league table.
He had won a series of lastgasp survival battles in the First Division with Charlton Athletic. There were potential problems from the start on Teesside for Lawrence because he inherited an unsettled dressing room.
Previous boss Colin Todd had placed no less than 11 players on the transfer list shortly before his demise.
The whole squad had taken the news badly and were waiting to see what Lawrence made of the situation.
Lennie was keen to start on a positive note and settle everyone’s fears yet, remarkably, several of the transfer listed players still moved on including the likes of Ian Baird, Colin Cooper and John Wark. In fact eight players went very quickly.
Boro had made it to the playoffs in the previous campaign but Lawrence clearly needed to inject some new blood into the team.
He did so by making two major signings, both from fellow Division Two club Watford.
They were striker Paul Wilkinson and midfielder Willie Falconer, who cost a joint fee of £800,000.
As a young striker, Wilkinson had won a League Championship winner’s medal at Everton, though it was with Watford where he had fully established himself as a top striker, scoring 56 league goals at an average of one in every three games.
Wilko was an attack leader and therefore a perfect replacement for Baird.
Aberdeenborn Falconer could operate in midfield or up front, though Lawrence used him to good effect in the centre of the park.
It was a highly beneficial double deal for the club yet Lawrence’s hardest piece of business was in hanging on to one of the key names on Todd’s transfer list.
Alan Kernaghan had been farmed out on loan to Charlton the previous season and had done very well in South London.
So well in fact that Kernaghan had his mind focused on making a permanent move to Charlton in the summer.
Imagine his confusion, therefore, when Boro appointed Lawrence as their new manager. By all accounts it was touch and go.
Kernaghan had not expected to be playing for the Boro in 1991- 92 and his head was turned. Lennie persevered and eventually Alan agreed to stay.
It worked well all round. Kernaghan, regarded as a striker in his early days, became a stalwart at the back. Eventually he was sold to Manchester City for £1.66m in 1993, considerably more than his likely transfer fee in 1991. Boro opened with a 1-0 win against Millwall, thanks to a goal from Robbie Mustoe. However they lost the next two, which created one or two early season doubts.
A stunning 3-0 win against Newcastle United then sparked a six match winning run which put Boro up among the promotion pacesetters, and there they stayed. In fact Boro were to lose two games on the trot on just one further occasion all season.
And in keeping Boro up with the division’s front runners, Lawrence did so while having to deal with a host of internal problems within the team.
In this respect his promotion achievement stands up there as one of the best in the relatively modern era.
Lawrence’s first blow was in losing Falconer through injury before the end of September.
It was not until mid-March that the Scot was fit to return to the action.
In early November Lennie reluctantly allowed erstwhile and much loved skipper Tony
Mowbray to leave the club.
Mogga believed he was going stale after spending his whole career so far with Boro. Eventually Lennie gave in and allowed the inspirational centre-back to complete a £1m move to Celtic.
With Cooper having insisted on a move during the summer and Gary Parkinson suffering from injury, Lawrence was forced to oversee the splitting up the famous back five which had won consecutive promotions under Bruce Rioch.
England defender Gary Pallister had joined Manchester United two years earlier, leaving only goalkeeper Steve Pears remaining. Middlesbroughborn defender Nicky Mohan, who had just celebrated his 21st birthday, was drafted in as Mowbray’s replacement and went on to do a great job.
Lawrence felt the squad as a whole needed improvement if Boro were to stay the course and the board supplied the £700,000 to sign Hull City striker Andy Payton, who had been scoring a goal in less than every three games.
Payton was largely seen as a replacement for Bernie Slaven who, it appeared, had not always agreed with the manager’s decisions and selection preferences.
Unfortunately the planned Wilkinson-Payton partnership had no chance to get into gear.
Payton suffered a bad injury in his very first game at home to Bristol City and we never saw the best of him. Payton was followed through the door by another Lawrence signing when the manager went back to his former club Charlton for Andy Peake.
The 30-year-old midfielder proved to be a terrific acquisition for around £30,000 and added plenty of steel to the side.
However Peake had played in the Rumbelows League Cup for Charlton and was cup-tied, missing Boro’s terrific run to the semi-finals.
It was quite remarkable that Boro were able to put together such a stunning cup run at the same time as they were fighting for promotion, and a pointer towards the terrific impact which Lawrence had made on the side.
Boro even had a sniff of the final, going close to knocking out title chasing Manchester United in the semis.
The first leg at Ayresome finished goalless but Boro battled United all the way in the deciding leg at Old Trafford and forced extra-time, thanks to a goal from Slaven.
Unfortunately Ryan Giggs was to destroy everybody’s hopes with an extra-time winner. Even so, the cup run had a spin off effect on Boro’s league form and they were unbeaten throughout February and March.
The return fixture at Bristol City, in early April, was the infamous game which witnessed the pre- match pitch-side argument between Lawrence and Slaven, who had just discovered that he was left out of the side that night.
Slaven, who ironically still finished as top scorer in the League with 16 goals, was to start just two further games in the run-in.
Soon after the City game, Lawrence secured a loan deal to bring in defender Jon Gittens from Portsmouth. An injury to Kernaghan meant Gittens played in every remaining game.
Gittens’ biggest contribution came in the final match at Wolves, which Boro had to win to make sure of automatic promotion. It was nip and tuck until midway through the second half when Mohan was sent off and the ten-men went 1-0 down through a goal from Andy Mutch. With time threatening to run out Boro lifted themselves for a late assault, with new boy Gittens grabbing the leveller 15 minutes from time.
In the dying seconds Jamie Pollock then showed superb skills to make space for a chipped cross to the far post, from where Wilkinson headed in the winner off the woodwork.
It couldn’t have been much closer. But Lawrence achieved his target at the death and Boro were promoted to the inaugural Premier League on a wave of euphoria.