‘Sinbad’ will be quick to sail back

1:40pm Friday 26th September 2008

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I hope Lee Sinnott does not take long to prove Port Vale wrong – because he will do.

This column has always been a big fan of ‘Sinbad’ for the way he took Farsley Celtic up the divisions and to the top level of non-league football.

He earned his chance in the professional game the hard way. What he did not deserve was the way that the opportunity was suddenly snatched away.

It seems Sinnott was on rocky ground from the start. Vale are run by an old traditional nine-man board – and you know what they say about management by committee.

He shaded the vote just 5-4 in his favour to get the job. As part of the deal he had to keep on Dean Glover, the former Vale player who had been doing the caretaker role, as his assistant.

Working with the guy who you pipped for the post? That hardly sounds like a marriage made in heaven.

When the axe fell on Monday, the committee voted 6-3 against. Interestingly, the vice-chairman was still in favour of Sinnott and, though he wouldn’t say publicly either way, it is strongly believed that the chairman felt the same.

In cold terms, Sinnott’s record of nine wins in 44 games was not a good one. But he was handed a team in decay and in need of a massive turn-around which would take time – and ten months is hardly that.

His hardest task now will be jumping back on the merry-go-round. As Mike Newell said, there are 70 applicants and ten serious contenders for every vacant hot-seat.

But Sinnott, a deep thinker of the game, will learn from the first setback of a previously-unblemished managerial run.

You can’t keep a good man down.