Born on this day in Retford, England is former Sunderland and Republic of Ireland winger Liam Lawrence.
Lawrence began his career playing youth football for Retford Town, Nottingham Forest and Mansfield Town.
His professional debut would come in 1999 for Mansfield, where he’d help them to automatic promotion to the third tier in 2002. An immediate relegation followed and the Stags would narrowly miss out on bouncing straight back up after losing a play-off final on penalties.
At this point Liam found himself on Sunderland’s radar as we looked to strengthen the squad ahead of a promotion push. We acquired his services in summer 2004 for a fee of £175,000. He played quite regularly as we won the Championship title, with 32 appearances. He scored six goals, which included a brace in a 3-1 win vs Wolves as one of the highlights of his season.
Despite the 05/06 Premier League season being nothing short of disastrous for the Black Cats, as we went down with a whimper and just 15 points, Lawrence came out of the season voted our second best player and signed a new contract in the following summer. His exploits included a goal away at Newcastle and a goal against eventual champions Chelsea as he played a total of 33 games across all competitions.
The new contract didn’t get used at Sunderland for very long as Lawrence joined rival Championship club Stoke City on loan in November 2006 after falling out with manager Roy Keane. In January this was made permanent and in the short term this wasn’t the greatest move as Stoke finished 8th missing out on the playoffs and Sunderland were of course promoted as Champions.
2007/08 was a fun season for Lawrence as he netted a total of 15 times in 44 appearances, was named Stoke City’s Player of the Year and earned another automatic Championship promotion to put onto his CV.
The Irishman missed much of the next campaign in the top flight due to an injury that occurred under very odd circumstances. He tripped over his labrador and had to have surgery performed to repair a torn ligament. Nevertheless, Lawrence played a key role in Stoke’s season. He scored their first home goal of the Premier League season and once he had recovered he ended up scoring the Potters second goal in a 2-1 win vs Hull City in a game that ensured the Staffordshire club’s survival. At the end of this season he also made his debut for the Republic of Ireland national team.
Our ex-player was then rewarded with a new contract before the start of the next season but starts were sporadic and he managed just one goal all season and therefore departed for pastures new way down south at Portsmouth then of the Championship but on the national team stage he scored his first of two goals for RoI in a 1-0 win vs South Africa via a free kick and made his first competitive start for the country in a 2-2 draw with Italy. The completion of the transfer ended up being more complicated than it ought to have been, the deal supposedly went through on deadline day of the summer transfer window but the paperwork was not submitted in time and the attacker ended up having to go to Hampshire on an emergency loan a few days later.
Life at Pompey got off to a great start when he netted four in seven matches but his time was cut short there due to the club going into administration. They couldn’t afford to pay for a scan on an injury he had so despite wanting to stay with the club he was forced out at the end of the season.
Therefore, he made a loan move to Cardiff which wasn’t the best time of his career only producing one goal in 15 games for the Welsh side.
Greece would be his next destination as he signed a two-year contract with PAOK. He scored in a 4-1 win over bitter rivals Aris but also ended up being shown two red cards in his first campaign with the club.
In January 2014 he returned to England when he signed for Barnsley. However this was another chapter to forget, scoring only one goal in his 14 games, with the Tykes being relegated to League One.
His time with Shrewsbury, his next club, was much better. Liam scored a number of goals to help the club to promotion to League One.
As a result of his high-wage contract in Shropshire and the fact he didn’t play very much in League One with Shrewsbury, he was allowed to leave for Bristol Rovers in the January window.
The final club of his career (on a professional basis) ended up being worthwhile because he added a second promotion to League One in a row to his list of accolades as Rovers were promoted on the final day of the season.
In 2020, he moved back to Stoke to become their U15 manager, after a brief appearance-less spell with Rushall Olympic in 2017.
