Lennie Lawrence

Don't really recall any of the fans complaining about the money being spent at the time. Remember some grumbling when Handyside left but personally didn't feel he was quite the same player when he returned from a season long injury anyway. I think Lawrence just did what he thought was right for a club in that league. All the big clubs were spending money to bring in good players and he hoped searching overseas for good players would work. In some cases it worked and in others not so much but in the end the lack of cash,size of the club and everything else caught up with his ambitions. Some players he bought in did well, some we couldn't afford to keep though.

I think he was right about the board though. We've never had very ambitious people running the club who are willing to raise money to drive the club forwards but that's kind of the town mentality too. This is why the council have never bothered to be on the club's side when it comes to a new stadium and why a good portion of the town would rather the club would not have one because they might one day be inconvenienced by traffic.

When you're a small club, you can't really compete financially with the big boys in the division so you have to look in other areas of the game to create excitement.

In my opinion, Lennie wasn't necessarily splashing big wages on foreign players because he truly thought they were the long-term solution. Rather, I believe he was trying to generate a bit of a buzz around the club - a bit like the Ivano effect.

Just for a few weeks (or months) we began to dream. Naturally it helps if the exotic players make us better - Lennie's were hit (Nielsen) and miss (Willems) - but who'd have thought we'd have a Chinese international playing for us?!

What Lennie was doing at 'little old Grimsby' was trying something different; getting us noticed and spoken about; raising our profile and doing everything he could that money wouldn't quite allow.

I appreciate some of the foreign imports were rumoured to be on large wages while they were here, but I think deep down he - and we - knew it was just temporary. The thought of holding onto Nielsen was fanciful, but it was nice while it lasted.

I don't think Lennie was erratic or wasteful. He had enjoyed some success as a manager, he had ideas and he tried something different with us. It worked, in the short-term, but the way it fell apart the following season was sad to see.

I was a little surprised to find out that he'd been sacked when he had. Groves then endured a tough couple of months trying to turn it around, but we really accelerated to safety in the end with what was largely Lennie's squad.

Quoted from chaos33

£14,500 a week my @rse.
I've seen about 40 different figures quoted confidently over the years about what we paid Zhang, but you can bet your house it wasn't yours. Hogwash masquerading as truth as usual.

It may be hogwash but do you know? In the book The Grimsby Town Story it does say he " reputedly earned in the region of £13,000-per-week during his brief spell ". I don't know how accurate that figure is , do you?

I honestly don't care mate.
We might ask why there are so many figures quoted confidently as facts and how they could all be true, and, who would indeed know?
Personally I ask if it's really believable that we could pay just 1 player the best part of £1m a year.

Quoted from chaos33

I honestly don't care mate.
We might ask why there are so many figures quoted confidently as facts and how they could all be true, and, who would indeed know?
Personally I ask if it's really believable that we could pay just 1 player the best part of £1m a year.

£1M a year?? Maths not your strong point then?

I said 'the best part of' clever clogs. 14.5k a week is roughly 750K p.a plus appearance and goal bonus and any other additional payments. Best part of a million.

Quoted from chaos33

I honestly don't care mate.
We might ask why there are so many figures quoted confidently as facts and how they could all be true, and, who would indeed know?
Personally I ask if it's really believable that we could pay just 1 player the best part of £1m a year.

Well if you honestly don't care mate, then why post in the first place?

Quoted from Kris2

Don't really recall any of the fans complaining about the money being spent at the time. Remember some grumbling when Handyside left but personally didn't feel he was quite the same player when he returned from a season long injury anyway. I think Lawrence just did what he thought was right for a club in that league. All the big clubs were spending money to bring in good players and he hoped searching overseas for good players would work. In some cases it worked and in others not so much but in the end the lack of cash,size of the club and everything else caught up with his ambitions. Some players he bought in did well, some we couldn't afford to keep though.

I think he was right about the board though. We've never had very ambitious people running the club who are willing to raise money to drive the club forwards but that's kind of the town mentality too. This is why the council have never bothered to be on the club's side when it comes to a new stadium and why a good portion of the town would rather the club would not have one because they might one day be inconvenienced by traffic.

Handyside was also carving out a reputation off the field as well which wasnt helping his football.

Quoted from chaos33

£14,500 a week my @rse.
I've seen about 40 different figures quoted confidently over the years about what we paid Zhang, but you can bet your house it wasn't yours. Hogwash masquerading as truth as usual.

It was in the accounts as we are a PLC. For some reason that year, it showed the wage of the highest earner.

Quoted from fishboyUTM

It was in the accounts as we are a PLC. For some reason that year, it showed the wage of the highest earner.

Could have been the manager