Playing Career
Capped by Scotland at youth and schoolboy level, Sinclair joined Nottingham Forest as an apprentice from Stirling Boys Club and he signed professional forms in November 1982. However he failed to make a first-team appearance for the City Ground club and it was in a loan spell with Division Four side Wrexham in the closing stages of the 1983–84 season that Sinclair gained his first Football League action. Over the following two seasons he spent time on loan with Derby County, Sheffield United and Leeds United without making the first-team, but he was snapped up on a permanent basis by Leeds in June 1986 for £10,000. He made eight league appearances the following season before twice joining Halifax Town on loan.
In September 1989 Sinclair moved to Bristol City, who he helped win promotion from Division Three in his first season at Ashton Gate. By the early stages of the 1991–92 campaign he was out on loan again though, spending time with Walsall before beginning a five year stay with Stoke City in a £25,000 move in November 1991. Sinclair faced regular competition for the goalkeeper’s shirt with Stoke but played more than 20 games in his first three seasons at the club.
After falling out of favour, Sinclair joined Chester City on a free transfer in August 1996. After conceding just 43 goals in 1996–97, Chester qualified for the Division Three play-offs with Sinclair voted the club’s player of the season. The Blues lost to Swansea City in the semi-finals and the following season saw Sinclair miss 13 league games following the emergence of Wayne Brown. He was not selected again after a 5–0 thrashing at Exeter City on 4 April 1998 and manager Kevin Ratcliffe announced later in the month that Sinclair’s contract would not be renewed.
Read more about this topic: Ronnie Sinclair
Famous quotes containing the words playing and/or career:
“Give me mine angle, we’ll to th’ river; there,
My music playing far off, I will betray
Tawny-finned fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up,
I’ll think them every one an Antony,
And say, “Ah, ha! y’ are caught.””
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)