The shape of things to come?

Bloody hell I remember that Pompey game, thinking who's that lanky tw*t. Doesn't look like a foo...oh sodomist he's scored.

Quoted from chaos33

Great work in your posts on this thread diehard. I remember all that well. By my reckoning you'd maybe be about 20 around that time? Some of us were posting on the original 'Electronic Fishcake' in that era  

Cheers mate.  
I would have been late teens when Lennie took over and brought his foreign legion in.  Fresh eyed, full of hope and optimism.  Easy to look back now and say how that era was a farce but I genuinely thought at the time that we were destined for bigger things under Lennie and Huxford.  I think that naive hope made it all that more painful when the wheels came off and towards the end I was very vocal in blaming him for the demise.

For all his achievements Buckley had left a bit of a stale taste at the end of his second spell and it was refreshing to see something different.  I think it was Lennie's first game, away at Crewe possibly, with a 3-5-2 formation.  It was a disaster but it was a sign of things to come.  David Neilsen came in soon after and although he was by far the peak of the foreigners it was fascinating to see the likes of Menno and Knut Anders Fostervold coming to Town.  Of course most of the foreigners were absolutely junk but it was exciting.  

Lennie was only spending the money the board said he could and whilst some of his decision making was a bit suspect, Handyside the classic example, the thinking was clear to see.  I remember him saying that he hoped the signing of Enhua would tap into the local Chinese population.  Unfortunately no-one told him it equated to about 200 people.  Another thing he did well was bridge the gap between our youth team and first team.  We were producing a couple of decent players (Rowan and Croudson the ones that spring to mind), but we had nothing in the way of a development side.  In his first full summer he brought in six young lads released by other clubs.  Two were a couple of Dutch lads, one a 'keeper who I never saw, the other a very talented midfielder who just couldn't hack it physically and I think was homesick but we had varying success with the others.  Simon Ford, the aforementioned Chris Thompson, Graham Hockless and Chris Bolder all went onto make first team appearances.  Ford the stand out 'success' of the experiment but Bolder made a number of appearances, Thompson had ridiculous potential but seemed to lack attitude and Hockless was the darling of the Pontoon a couple of seasons later.    What Lennie tried to address was that we didn't give youth lads long enough to develop and we ended up with a massive gap between the 18 man professional squad and then the youth set-up.   That's a problem we've still got today, doubt we're the only club either.

If anyone hasn't read John McDermott's book, it gives a great insight into the changes Lennie tried to bring into the club.  Not a fair comparison but since he left here we've done nothing but go down whilst he's carved out a very good little job for himself as a Director of Football/advisor to Dougie Freedman at a couple of Championship clubs.  

Ah yes, the original Electronic Fishcake.  Some great debates on there, at the time when the internet and message boards really exploded but well before social media came along.  I would say it was before internet trolling too but can you remember Mariner Matt was it, or Matt Mariner?  I think he was a Town fan at heart but he could never resist a wind up and loved to remind people of how expensive his flat in Sheffield centre was and how big the TV in his bedroom was  

First time the news seemed to hit the internet before the back page of the local paper too which made it seem even more exciting.  The ability to Google (probably was AskJeeves at that point!) the latest foreigner that Lennnie had taken on trial from the Danish fifth division was incredible.  I seem to remember this site had a young journo 'working' for them who had the scoop on absolute everything, even well ahead of the club at the time.  He went onto one of the national websites I think.

Despite the relegation scrap and a fair few absolute hammerings, good times to be a Town fan.

The whole Lennie Lawrence 'thing' was like a big firework; expensive, glittery, full of anticipation but all over in a flash and ultimately a let down.

Quoted from chaos33

Great work in your posts on this thread diehard. I remember all that well. By my reckoning you'd maybe be about 20 around that time? Some of us were posting on the original 'Electronic Fishcake' in that era  

I miss the electronic fishcake chat room on match days

Quoted from blundellpork

Whilst Enhua was a menace in the opposition box, he was just average at defending our own. It was such a waste to see such a talent as Handyside sat on the bench week after week. Unfortunately Lawrence and the board lost the plot around that time throwing fortunes at average foreigners.

Porky

I think the highlighted part led to our demise and subsequent fall from grace. The Board seemed to sanction spending silly money on just trying to stay at Championship level. It would always be a struggle at that level and we were certainly " punching above our weight". We ended up owing thousands and still eventually got relegated with a huge debt around our necks. We also deferred paying money owed to HMRC on the prospect of income from Digital TV ( a very stupid strategy ) and subsequently had to depend on JF bailing us out.  

Who was our assistant manager when Lennie Lawrence was in charge ?

Cockers?

Yeah it was Cockers, Paul Wilkinson was also brought in to manage the reserve/development squad.