New ball game for James

May 3 2007 By Bill Mcguirk, The Evening Chronicle

Sam Allardyce's last act as manager of Bolton Wanderers was to hand Newcastle-born teenager James Sinclair his Premiership debut.

With 15 minutes remaining of the crucial match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last Saturday, Allardyce sent on Sinclair to shore up the Bolton defence and the 19-year-old didn't put a foot wrong as they held on for a superb draw.

While Sinclair looks to be on the verge of carving out a promising career in football, it was his performances on the running track that first caught the eye, firstly with Morpeth Harriers and then with Gateshead.

At Nottingham in 2002, he was just edged out of first place in the English Schools' Championships over 200 metres and in the same year was Gateshead Harrier's fastest-ever under-15 athlete over 100 metres with a time of 11.38 seconds.

He was also a talented javelin thrower and he managed to package it all together into a gold medal winning performance to win the Scottish Decathlon title.

However, while all this was happening, Sinclair had ambitions of making it on the football stage despite the disappointment of being cast out of Sunderland's Academy at a young age.

I caught up with Sinclair earlier this week and, despite his rise to fame, he was at pains to tell me how much he enjoyed athletics and his time competing up and down the country with Gateshead Harriers.

"I really enjoyed myself at the Harriers and even now I miss it a lot," said Sinclair, who was first spotted as a potential athlete at Alnwick's Duchess High School.

"I still keep in touch with some of the group I used to train with and hopefully, I'll get down to the stadium a few times during the mid-season break to see them again and maybe do a few training sessions with them.

"At first I was sprinting, mainly in the summer, to help me for the football season.

"And I had some reasonable success. But all the time I was still hopeful of making it as a footballer for I had been playing at every level through school and junior leagues."

So it wasn't surprising the youngster who once scored a hat-trick of hat-ticks in a game while playing for Northumberland County, was given the opportunity at Bolton.

However, his football breakthrough is all the more amazing as he broke his leg in his second season at the Reebok Stadium and just before Christmas last year it looked as though he was also going to be shown the door a second time when it was thought that he was too small to make it as a striker.

But a chance switch into defence on the training ground, plus the determination to succeed, brought immediate results which ended with that dramatic appearance at Stamford Bridge.

So, at the end of an eventful day, it was Big Sam who ended up packing his bags after the final whistle rather than the rookie from Northumberland.

"It was a great experience making my Premiership debut. I was more nervous when I first saw my name among the subs than when I eventually got on to the pitch.

"I think I did quite well and didn't let anyone down.

It was good to get the congratulations from the rest of my team-mates."

With a new manager at the helm in Sammy Lee, Sinclair, who can claim to be the quickest footballer on Bolton's books, will be eagerly awaiting the team sheet being posted on the dressing room wall.