Lee Sinnott

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Lee Sinnott
Personal information
Full name	Lee Sinnott
Date of birth	12 July 1965 (1965-07-12) (age 43)
Place of birth	Aldridge, Walsall, England
Height	6 ft 2 in (1.88 m)
Playing position	Defender
Club information
Current club	Bradford Park Avenue (Manager)
Youth career
	Walsall
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1982–1983 1983–1987 1987–1991 1991–1993 1993–1994 1994–1997 1997–1999 1998 1999–2000	Walsall Watford Bradford City Crystal Palace Bradford City Huddersfield Town Oldham Athletic → Bradford City (loan) Scarborough	040 (2) 078 (2) 173 (6) 055 (0) 034 (1) 087 (1) 031 (0) 007 (0) 022 (0)
Teams managed
2003–2007 2007–2008 2009–	Farsley Celtic Port Vale Bradford Park Avenue
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Lee Sinnott (born 12 July 1965) is an English former professional footballer and current manager of Northern Premier League side Bradford Park Avenue. He achieved enormous success as manager of Farsley Celtic, most notably winning promotion three times in four seasons, which was followed by a spell at Port Vale.

Contents 1 Playing career 2 Managerial career 2.1 Farsley Celtic 2.2 Port Vale 2.3 Bradford Park Avenue 2.4 Managerial statistics 3 Honours 3.1 Player 3.1.1 Promotions 3.1.2 Cups 3.2 Manager 3.2.1 Promotions 3.2.2 Cups 4 Personal life 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Playing career

Born in Aldridge, Walsall, Staffordshire, He began his career at Walsall as an apprentice, signing professional in 1982. He made 40 first-team appearances in his first season at Fellows Park before joining First Division Watford. At the end of his first season, when still only 18 years old, he played in the 1984 FA Cup Final against Everton at Wembley Stadium, collecting a runners-up medal. He helped Watford reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup three seasons later.

In 1987, Sinnott moved down a division to Bradford City and in his first season he helped the Bantams qualify for the Second Division playoffs, but their promotion bid failed and two years later they were relegated. Sinnott spent one season in the Third Division before moving to First Division side Crystal Palace. He was unable to establish a regular place in the first team and after two years he returned to Bradford.

When Sinnott returned to Valley Parade over the summer of 1993, Bradford were still in the third tier of the English league (now Division Two following the creation of the Premier League); he played in most of their first-team games that season. But the Bantams missed out on the playoffs and manager Frank Stapleton was sacked, with Sinnott following his manager out of the exit door and signing for local rivals Huddersfield Town. He was made captain of Neil Warnock's team, and guided them to Division Two playoff victory in his first season. He spent two more seasons in West Yorkshire before crossing the Pennines and signing for Oldham Athletic, who had just been relegated to Division Two.

Sinnott played 31 games over two seasons at Boundary Park, but Oldham struggled in a division that they had been expected to win promotion from, and in Sinnott's second season they narrowly avoided relegation to Division Three. A year earlier, he had been loaned back to Bradford, but the move was not made permanent.

1998–99 proved to be Lee Sinnott's final season as a Football League player. He moved to Scarborough, who had just been relegated to the Football Conference, and played 22 games in one season for a side who finished fourth in the country's highest non-league division. He then retired from playing after a career spanning almost 20 years.

[edit] Managerial career

[edit] Farsley Celtic

Sinnott was not out of football for long, moving into management with non-league Farsley Celtic on 20 June 2003.^[1] His first success with the club was a third-place finish in the Northern Premier League Division One in 2004 which earned the club promotion to the Northern Premier League. Sinnott would have achieved another promotion in his 2nd season at Throstle Nest as Farsley topped the Northern Premier League at the end of the season. However this was only on the FA's decision that Spennymoor United's records were expunged after they folded. The other clubs in the promotion mix appealed and won so Farsley finished 3rd and had to compete in the playoffs. Despite a 1-0 semi final win over Whitby Town they lost in the final to Workington on penalties. Another promotion was achieved in 2006 however as Sinnott and Farsley bounced back. This time Farsley finished 4th in the regulation season before defeating Marine 1-0 and then North Ferriby United 2-1 in the final. Sinnott also added the West Riding County Cup to Farsley's trophy cabinet for the 10th time in the clubs history as they made it a double winning campaign in 2005-06. Remarkably in 2007 Sinnott steared the club to a third promotion in four seasons when Farsley finished 5th in the Conference North and won promotion to the Conference National again via the playoffs. Farsley beat favourites Kettering in the semi final and then Hinckley in the final at Burton Albion's Pirelli Stadium. In the final Farsley Celtic had been 3-2 down with just over 10 minutes remaining before 2 late goals saw a remarkable comeback and a 4-3 victory.

Farsley's three promotions under Sinnott and the declines of Bradford City and their local rivals Leeds United mean that just one and two divisions separate his club from its neighbours, when seven years ago six divisions separated them.

[edit] Port Vale

In October 2007, Sinnott was linked with the vacant job at League One team Port Vale, and on November 1, 2007 Farsley Celtic's chairman Andrew Firbank told fans that Sinnott would soon be leaving the club.^[2] However, hours later, confusion arose when Sinnott denied resigning.^[3] On November 5, 2007 he was named the new Port Vale manager ending the speculation about his future.^[4] On his first game in charge Sinnott lost to local rivals Crewe Alexandra.

Sinnott achieved his first win in charge of Port Vale at Morecambe in the FA Cup first round, with Port Vale winning 2–0. His first win in the league came on 8 December, winning 2–1 away at Gillingham. He was unable to keep Port Vale up, however, and they were relegated on 12 April 2008. Now it was the summer transfer season and Sinnott was now able to sign players to make the team that would take them back where they belong so he offloaded players such as Jason Talbot and Joe Cardle to bring in young talented players. He brought in defenders John McCombe who went up with Hereford United last season and wanted to make a point. Others included Steve Thompson from Middlesbrough and Louis Dodds from Leicester City. This along with a few other players would be the team to face the League Two big hitters. Vale defeated Luton Town for the first time since 1897, but a run of home defeats to Accrington Stanley and Macclesfield Town saw Sinnott sacked in September, with the team lying in 16th position in League Two.^[5] Three months on from his sacking, the club were yet to reach a compensation settlement with Sinnott,^[6] before an agreement was reached in February 2009.^[7]

[edit] Bradford Park Avenue

Sinnott was linked with a vacant position at Bradford Park Avenue at the end fo 2008, but the club were unwilling to pursue the interest because of Sinnott's unresolved contract with Port Vale,^[8] and instead appointed his former Farsley assistant and successor John Deacey.^[9] However, despite Sinnott still taking legal action against Port Vale, Park Avenue appointed Sinnott as their new manager just one month later; Avenue were 11th in the Northern Premier League Premier Division at the time of his appointment,^[10] with Deacey standing aside to become Sinnott's assistant once again.^[11]

Sinnott's first game ended in a 2–0 defeat to Eastwood Town, who went top of the league, with Avenue dropping to ninth even though a victory could have lifted them to third.^[12]

[edit] Managerial statistics

As of 9 April 2009.^[13]

Team	Nat	From	To	Record[14]
				G	W	L	D	Win %[15]
Farsley Celtic		20 June 2003	5 November 2007	187	91	48	48	[citation needed]
Port Vale		5 November 2007	22 September 2008	44	9	24	11	20.45
Bradford Park Avenue		17 January 2009		15	9	2	4	[citation needed]

[edit] Honours

[edit] Player

[edit] Promotions

• 1994–95: Division 2 Playoff winners (promotion to Division 1) - Huddersfield Town

[edit] Cups

• 1983–84: FA Cup runner up - Watford

[edit] Manager

[edit] Promotions

• 2003–04: Northern Premier League Division One 3rd (promotion to Northern Premier) - Farsley Celtic
• 2005–06: Northern Premier Playoff winners (promotion to Conference North) - Farsley Celtic
• 2006–07: Conference North Playoff winners (promotion to Conference National) - Farsley Celtic

[edit] Cups

• 2005–06: West Riding County Cup Winner - Farsley Celtic

[edit] Personal life

His brother is the actor, writer and director Richard Sinnott.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Lee Sinnott career stats at Soccerbase
• Lee Sinnott management career stats at Soccerbase

v • d • e Farsley Celtic A.F.C. – Managers Sinnott (2003–07) · Deacey (2007–08) · Parsley (2008–)

v • d • e Port Vale F.C. – Managers Hood (1876–96) · Gleaves (1896–1905) · Clare (1905–11) · Walker (1911–12) · Myatt (1912–14) · Holford (1914–18) · Cameron (1918–19) · Schofield (1919–29) · Morgan (1929–32) · Holford (1932–35) · Cresswell (1936–37) · Morgan (1937–38) · Diffin (1944) · Pratt (1944–45) · Frith (1945–46) · Hodgson (1946–51) · Powell (1951) · Steele (1951–57) · Low (1957–62) · Steele (1962–65) · Mudie (1965–67) · Matthews (1967–68) · Lee (1968–74) · Sproson (1974–77) · Harper (1977) · Smith (1977–78) · Butler (1978–79) · Bloor (1979) · Bentley (1979) · McGrath (1979–83) · Rudge (1984–99) · Dearden and Grew (1999) · Horton (1999–2004) · Foyle (2004–07) · Glover (2007) · Sinnott (2007–08) · Glover and Porter (2008) · Glover (2008–09) · Adams (2009–) Italics indicates caretaker-manager roles

v • d • e Bradford Park Avenue A.F.C. – Managers O'Rourke (1924–25) · Hardy (19??–??) · Steele (1936–43) · Buckingham (1951–53) · Scoular (1960–64) · Brown (1968–70) · Leighton (1970–73) · Mackay (1989–93) · Rayner (1993–97) · Storton (1997–2004) · Shutt (2004–05) · Brook (2005–06) · Sharpe (2006–07) · Phillips (2007–08) · Cameron (2008) · Marsh and Stokes (2008) · Deacey (2008–09) · Sinnott (2009–)

Persondata
NAME	Lee Sinnott
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Footballer
DATE OF BIRTH	12 July 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aldridge, Walsall, England
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH