Cod Almighty | Article

by Alistair Wilkinson

13 March 2007

It was the infamous chicken sandwich set-to that is now football folklore: Brian Laws, the new manager of Sheffield Wednesday, and Ivano Bonetti. Kenilworth Road, 10 February 1996. Grimsby Town were in a run of ten league games without a win. The last victory had come at Prenton Park where Tranmere Rovers were defeated 1-0, the scorer: Bonetti. The only other win was in the third round of the FA Cup, a 7-1 whitewash of Luton Town.

This winless run had disappointed the ambitious Laws. He had held a belief that he could lead Grimsby to the Premiership. Did he see them as a vehicle for his own success? What manager doesn't?

In their league game against the Hatters, Grimsby had led 2-1. They threw it away, eventually losing 3-2. In the away dressing room afterwards, the two egos collided, Bonetti went down and Laws was left to gaze on the remains of his job at Grimsby, and possibly his career.

A picture of Bonetti's bruised face appeared on the back page of the Sun. For Grimsby this meant that the nation forgot about fish for a while as the jokes turned to chicken. While Laws now admits that the incident led to his downfall at Grimsby, he still bemoans Bonetti's commitment to the cause. "I lost my job by simply being committed to wanting commitment from players... I just felt I wasn't getting it from that certain player," he told the Independent in January 2001. His chairman, Bill Carr, backed him at the time, "A lot of things are said in the heat of the moment. They are not taken seriously."

But they were. The fracas preceded Grimsby's second biggest cup game of the '95-96 season: a home replay in the FA Cup fourth round against West Ham. Beforehand the two men posed for photographs, handshakes and fake smiles. Right before kick-off the Italian walked across the pitch. His name was chanted with a volume and passion rarely matched in the years since his departure.

Grimsby won 3-0, setting up a home tie with Chelsea. Things looked bright from the stands. Ruud Gullit was coming to Blundell Park, the manager had apologised, and Bonetti had pledged himself to the club till the end of the season. Behind the scenes, though, Bonetti had started legal proceedings against Laws within three weeks. The vultures were already circling, and the then manager of Tranmere, John Aldridge, had made no secret of his admiration for the player.

As with most folklore the details oft change. The only thing known for certain is that chicken was involved. Within months some newspapers had claimed it was a half-time bust-up while some said Bonetti threw food at Laws; one, some years after the event, said the player-manager was sacked 'weeks' after the fracas. In fact he lasted another nine months and wasn't sacked as Grimsby boss until the November of the following season.

Before the incident things had been if not exactly rosy then certainly very interesting at Blundell Park. How did Ivano Bonetti end up there? Money was involved. His image rights belonged to an American promotions company which was demanding a fee for the player's appearances. According to FIFA's rules Grimsby Town Football Club could not buy him out of it or pay the fee, as the company had nothing to do with football. The fans of the club raised £50,000 of the £100,000 reported to be the necessary figure. Bonetti himself paid half of it, such was his desire to play for the club.

He arrived at Blundell Park on a free transfer, a product of the Grimsby management's tireless scouring and scouting for talent. It's perhaps safe to say that they got lucky, and luckier still when Bonetti fell for the place - a feeling reciprocated many times over by the fans. At times in his career he may have felt that he'd played second fiddle to glamorous foreign imports. At Juventus a 20-year-old Bonetti was kept out of the team by Michel Platini. On the east coast of England he was the star, the big-name player, the glamorous foreign export. He was worshipped. There are few in the towns of Grimsby and Cleethorpes who don't know one story or another of both on and off-field activities.

In the honeymoon period, he helped the Mariners to second place in what was then called the first division. The club had been developing a reputation as a good footballing side, and in certain circles fish wasn't the first image to come to mind at the sound of the town's name. Bonetti had been helping to increase the size of those circles.

Since the event both men have moved on. Brian Laws went on to Darlington as a player on a month-to-month contract and then moved on to Scunthorpe United. Laws replaced Mick Buxton as Iron manager not much later, just about a year after his spat with Bonetti. It was the beginning of a nine-year reign. He would lead Scunthorpe to two promotions (and relegation in between) and more than one fantastic cup run, including leading Mourinho's Chelsea 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. He left Scunthorpe in a very respectable third in the third flight, dreaming the impossible dream of second-tier football.

While Laws quietly rebuilt his career and reputation, Bonetti continued to court the media and keep his name, and now un-bruised face, in the papers. He had short spells as a player at Tranmere, Crystal Palace and Genoa, and he couldn't forget his time on the east coast. He was part of a consortium that tried on three occasions to buy a controlling share of Grimsby Town. This consortium would have installed Bonetti as player-manager.

He never made it happen and so he turned elsewhere: north of the border to Scotland, to be precise.

Pat Nevin, with whom he had struck up a friendship in his time at Tranmere, took the Italian to an 'Old Firm' game. Bonetti was immediately hooked on the passionate and intense atmosphere the Scottish fans generated. In May 2000 Dundee unveiled Bonetti as their new player-manager, with his brother as assistant. In the previous December the Dark Blues board had denied that the same consortium that had tried to buy Grimsby had attempted to gain a controlling share of the Dees. The manager of the club, Jockie Scott, and his assistant Jimmy Bone were contracted until 9 July. The Bonettis took over on 10 July.

The 'Italian revolution', as it became known, began immediately. Dundee quickly signed midfielder and Georgian captain Georgie Nemsadze and the ex-Juventus, Roma and Bologna defender Marco di Marchi. The Argentinean forwards Fabian Caballero and Juan Sara soon followed, the beginning of a foreign invasion at Dens Park.

The Bonettis' impact was immediate. Dundee were scoring goals, winning games and playing exciting, attractive football. It was all happening. Ivano Bonetti was even sent off on his debut, a 2-0 victory over Motherwell. An injury to Caballero had fans worried about where the goals might come from but this led to Bonetti's most audacious transfer: Claudio Cannigia, the Argentine international, arrived to play for the Dark Blues on 6 October 2000.

The eyes of the footballing world had turned to Dundee and Ivano Bonetti. There was even talk of an exhibition match involving Diego Maradona. The Italian loved it. While that season saw him hang up his boots, he still led the team to a top six finish in the SPL and a prominent place on the football map.

And it all went wrong. The club spent lots of money on players such as Fan Zhiyi from Crystal Palace and Temuri Ketsbaia from Wolves, who never settled - and the club couldn't really afford them. In Bonetti's second year in charge the club lost £6.64m, or £220,000 a week. The manager began to miss games. He spent three weeks in Italy as he got married, and missed other games, claiming he was scouting and touting for players both in and out of Dens Park.

After 90 games and two years, the Bonettis left under a cloud. It would take Dundee a long time to recover from the debt incurred during their tenure.

What became of the three protagonists? Where are they now? Grimsby Town, apart from three successful years under Alan Buckley, have floundered and now reside in the lower reaches of the fourth division, hopeful that Buckley's recent re-re-appointment can resurrect the club. Bonetti now plays for the Maifredi Team, a side of former Serie A players who re-enact Serie A goals for the TV show Quelli che il Calcio.

Brian Laws is perhaps laughing last. In January 1997 he lost a High Court appeal which meant that he was liable for damages caused to Bonetti. But he is the one with the reputation and the respect needed to take charge of a big club. Back in the same division that almost saw the end of his managerial career, he is slowly turning his new club around. After a promising honeymoon period and the inevitable slump at the start of 2007, Sheffield Wednesday are back to winning ways and talk of a push for the Premiership next season is more than just wishful thinking.

When the fans of Grimsby Town look back on the Ivano era, the sentiment is perhaps 'if only'. If only this man with such passion and drive for the game could have made his mistakes at the other end of the M180, then this disciplinarian whose insistence that the game should be played the 'right way' could have been a natural successor to Alan Buckley. But club and manager have parted ways never to return and now Brian Laws can complete his own resurrection, fulfil his Premiership ambitions and wake the sleeping giant. If he does, he will do it without food fights.