Brian Simon Laws (Born October 14, 1961 in Wallsend, England) is manager of Sheffield Wednesday F.C. and a former professional footballer.

Playing career

Brian Laws began playing football at the famous Wallsend Boys Club in his native Newcastle upon Tyne. 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. With 'Boro Laws began to cement his place in the first-team and 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 Laws jumped at the chance to move to the Trentside club.

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 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.

Forest were relegated from the First Division 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.

Brian Laws is currently the manager of Sheffield Wednesday football club he has a wealth of experience in football both as a player and manager. Ex-Wednesday chairman Dave Allen in an interview made upon Brians appointment admitted that he likes Laws because of his Brian Clough management style. He said "I like him, he comes from the Clough camp, I’m a great admirer of the Clough camp". Brian Laws came to Wednesday with over ten years of management experience all mostly coming in the lower leagues. He started his management career at Grimsby Town FC in 1994 but was sacked by the board after a dismal start to the 96/97 season. He was in charge for just under two years. Laws’ management of Town was successful, but things suddenly deteriorated after he clashed with Grimsby player Ivano Bonnetti. Laws reportedly threw a plate of chicken wings at the player following a 3- 2 defeat at Luton town in February 96. After Laws left Grimsby he had a short spell as a player at Darlington FC before taking charge of Scunthorpe United . At Scunthorpe Laws achieved promotion twice in 99 and 05 respectively. He was bizarrely sacked before being reinstated in March 04 after a poor run in the league. Laws answered his critics by getting the team promoted to League One the following season. Laws was a firm fans' favourite at Scunthorpe and after achieving nearly ten years in charge the team they were sorry to see one of their longest serving managers leave.

Honours

Nottingham Forest (player)

• League Cup Winner: 1989, 1990
• League Cup Runner Up: 1992
• FA Cup Runner Up: 1991

Scunthorpe United (manager)

• Division Three play-off winners (fourth tier): 1998–99.
• League Two runners-up (fourth tier): 2004–05.
• Football League One Manager of the Month: April 2005, September 2006

Sheffield Wednesday (manager)

• Football League Championship Manager of the Month: November 2007

Managerial stats

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Grimsby Town		November 29 1994	November 1 1996	99	30	41	28	30.30
Scunthorpe United		February 24 1997	March 25 2004	389	147	141	101	37.78
Scunthorpe United		April 15 2004	November 6 2006	131	55	39	37	41.98
Sheffield Wednesday		November 6 2006	Present	87	35	30	22	40.23

Notes