Lenny Glover, the former Leicester City and Charlton Athletic midfielder made an impressive debut for the Rowdies in a nationally televised New York Cosmos match on June 6th 1976. The left-sided midfield player and sometime winger impressed immediately with forays towards goal. Lenny notched a Rowdies club record with three assists in the 5-1 win over the Cosmos.Played in a total of 14 games with one goal and seven assists, with the goal coming against the Rochester Lancers. He carried an injury which hampered his full effectiveness.
He had arrived in Tampa, just after late February 1977 indoor match with the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers.
Coach Eddie Firmani was familiar with him, since he played under Firmani at Charlton. Where he had made 177 appearances with 20 goals before making the move to Leicester. During the 1974-75 season, two of his four goals earned draws between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Stoke City.
On June 3rd 1977, Eddie Firmani resigned for "personal reasons" leaving the Rowdies in a state of uncertainty. Lenny was named Interim Coach. This lasted 6 days, when the Rowdies named former 1975 Rowdies' player John Boyle as Coach until the end of the 1977 season. Lenny made 19 appearances that season.
In retirement Lenny has maintained his links with the game through writing a hard hitting blog-spot. An acerbic and quick witted Cockney, Glover is often referred to in Frank Worthington’s seminal "One Hump or Two":for example,when locally born defender Alan Woollett’s dog died manager Jimmy Bloomfield tried to get his players to show respectful sympathy towards the defender- a feat Glover was singularly unable to do. He has had a spell as joint manager of Harlow Town with Bobby Kellard, and since the 2006 World Cup a hard hitting blog. He has also written his autobiography "From Left-Wing To D-Wing" (as seen above).
You can find his blog at: http://lenglover.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html
and his website, where you can purchase his book: http://www.lenglover.co.uk/index.html
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