Port Vale Unveil New Manager Lee Sinnott

A brave new dawn as a new era begins at Vale Park with the appointment of Lee Sinnott as the new Vale manager. The speculation of who would be the new man ended up a two horse race with caretaker boss Dean Glover and Lee Sinnott the main contenders, and the Vale board took the brave and exciting decision to appoint Sinnott with Glover to stay on as his assistant. Lee has signed a two and a half year deal and with his track record as a non league manager he will bring a new era to the Vale with a fresh outlook and no previous ties to hold his judgement back.

Bill Bratt said " We are all very excited at the appointment of Lee and he will of course get the full backing from us. We are also delighted at Dean's decision to stay on as Assistant Manager after all his years at the club and his hard work over the last few difficult weeks.

This is a fresh new start for the club and we feel that Lee is one of the best new up and coming English managers and we hope he will follow on from the success of other managers who have started in non league an done well as league managers such as Martin O'Neill, Martin Allen and Brian Little. "

A little about the new man at the helm now. Born in 1965 in Walsall and is the brother of actor Richard Sinnott. He started as an apprentice at Walsall before signing for Watford in 1983, where in his first season as a professional he got to live out every schoolboys dream and played in the FA Cup Final against Everton, collecting a runners up medal. His manager at the time was Graham Taylor, and he has been a huge influence on Lee's managerial style.

After four years at Watford he moved on to Bradford into what was then Division Two (Now the Championship). He helped Bradford make it to the Play-Offs that year, but the promotion bid failed and two years later they were relegated. He spent one season with Bradford in Division Three before moving back into the top league with Crystal Palace in 1991, but unable to maintain a regular first team place, he moved back to Bradford after two seasons.

Again Bradford just missed out on promotion in the Play-offs and then manager Frank Stapleton was sacked, so after one season back he moved on again to Huddersfield Town. In his first season under manager Neil Warnock he won promotion via the Play-Offs as captain of Warnock's team. He had three happy years at Huddersfield before signing for Oldham in 1997.

He had two years at Oldham who had just been relegated from League One, and in his time was loaned out again to Bradford. After he left Oldham he signed for Scarborough in 1999 and in his last season as a player the side reached fourth in the Nationwide conference.

Sinnott was not out of football for long and in 2003 he was appointed manager of Farsley Celtic. In his first season at the club he took them to third in the Northern Premier League Division One which gained them promotion to the Northern Premier League. After two years the team was promoted to the Conference North, and the following season the team was promoted to the Nationwide Conference via the Play-Offs. Farlsey's three promotions leaves them just two divisions behind neighbours Leeds United, and their highest League position ever.

Graham Taylor said this in a recent interview about the appointment of Sinnott at Port Vale " I respect Port Vale for looking outside the league to give a young manager a shot. He has what I call a proper approach about football. He always wants to learn and will listen and bide his time. Whatever he has done before will count for nothing when the going gets tough and that is when he will need the board's support, he will need time to get it right. Lee will have to be out all the time looking for players and make sure he can work within the financial constraints, he can't afford to sit at home and not be well organised. He knows I'm at the end of the phone if he needs advice over the coming months and I will try to help "

Included below is the press conference which unveils Lee Sinnott as the new boss.