Norman A.J. Sykes (16 October 1936 – 9 December 2009) was a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played in

The Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in the world, and was the top-level football league in England from ...

for

Bristol Rovers Bristol Rovers FC is a men's professional football club in Bristol. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club is affiliated to Bristol Rovers W.F.C., whose team play in the FA Women's National Leag ...

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. The club has played ...

Stockport County Stockport County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in EFL League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1883 as Heaton ...

, and

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system after winning the 202 ...

between 1953 and 1967. Sykes played youth football for various teams in his home town of

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

before signing his first professional contract with Bristol Rovers on his seventeenth birthday, with whom he spent twelve years, including one year as a youth team player. In 1961 he had an unsuccessful trial with Chelsea and returned to Bristol Rovers until in 1964 he joined Plymouth Argyle for a transfer fee of £2,000, but during his time there he was dogged by injury and made just three League appearances for them. In the summer of 1964 he played in the

Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League The Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League was a soccer league in Canada. The league operated for six seasons from 1961 to 1966 across four cities in two Canadian provinces and one American state. In the 1960s, the Eastern Canada Professional ...

with

Toronto City Toronto City was a Canadian soccer team based in Toronto, Ontario. Between 1961 and 1967, teams using this name competed in both the Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League and the United Soccer Association. History ECPSL In 1961, along wit ...

. He played 52 League games for Stockport County in seventeen months between September 1965 and February 1967, before spending the remainder of the 1966–67 season with Doncaster Rovers. Following that he dropped down to

non-League football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

, where he played for

Altrincham Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester, southwest of Sale, Greater Manchester, Sale and east of Warrington. At the 2021 United Kingdom ce ...

. After his footballing career Sykes opened a

teetotal Teetotalism is the practice of voluntarily abstaining from the consumption of alcohol, specifically in alcoholic drinks. A person who practices (and possibly advocates) teetotalism is called a teetotaler (US) or teetotaller (UK), or said to be ...

nightclub in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

in 1975, and later lived and worked in Manchester.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sykes, Norman 1936 births 2009 deaths Footballers from Bristol English men's footballers Men's association football midfielders English Football League players Bristol Rovers F.C. players Plymouth Argyle F.C. players Stockport County F.C. players Doncaster Rovers F.C. players Altrincham F.C. players Toronto City players Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League players 20th-century English sportsmen