Martin Sinclair (born 27 June 1986) is an English footballer who plays for the England CP team, as well as being a SaintsAbility development officer for Saints Foundation. Sinclair's catchphrase is, "It's about showcasing players ability, rather than their disability".
Martin Sinclair was born on 27 June 1986 in Bath, England. [1] He is the brother of Bristol Rovers footballer Scott Sinclair, who represented Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Jake Sinclair, a member of the Southampton F.C. Academy, who also played on loan at Hibernian. [2]
Sinclair was born with cerebral palsy but still had ambitions of playing football. [2] As a teenager he fell off a slide, resulting in the ball and socket coming out of his hip; the injury was initially diagnosed as a damaged ligament, but when he went to hospital for an operation on his hand an x-ray revealed the real injury. He used a wheelchair for three years and had a hip replacement at the age of 21. [2]
Whilst his brother Scott was playing for Plymouth Argyle, Sinclair was introduced to manager Ian Holloway who offered him a role coaching in the football in the community programme. It was during this that he found out about Plymouth's disabled side. [2] [3] He competes in 7-a-side matches for players with cerebral palsy. [2] He was part of the Great Britain teams that won a bronze medal at the 2010 Paralympic World Cup and a silver medal at the 2012 event. [1]
In 2012, Sinclair was selected to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics as part of a twelve-player squad for the 7-a-side football event. [4] [5] Great Britain faced Brazil, the United States and Ukraine in the preliminary stage of the competition, with all matches being held at the Riverbank Arena. [6] Sinclair and Scott became the first brothers to represent Great Britain at a Paralympic and Olympic Games in the same year, as Scott appeared for the Great Britain Olympic football team who reached the quarterfinals at the 2012 Summer Olympics . [2] [7]
The 1984 International Games for the Disabled, canonically the 1984 Summer Paralympics, were the seventh Paralympic Games to be held. There were two separate competitions: one in Stoke Mandeville, England, United Kingdom for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries and the other at the Mitchel Athletic Complex and Hofstra University on Long Island, New York, United States for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees, and les autres [the others]. Stoke Mandeville had been the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games from 1948 onwards, seen as the precursors to the Paralympic Games, as the 9th International Stoke Mandeville Games in Rome in 1960 are now recognised as the first Summer Paralympics. As with the 1984 Summer Olympics, the Soviet Union and other communist countries except China, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia boycotted the Paralympic Games. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Paralympics at the time, arguing that they have no disabled people in the country. The USSR made its Paralympic debut in 1988, during Perestroika.
Scott Andrew Sinclair is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger for EFL League One club Bristol Rovers. He represented England at youth level, from the under-17s to the under-21s, and also played for Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Great Britain competed at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Great Britain sent a delegation of around 400, of which 212 were athletes, to compete in eighteen sports at the Games. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Paralympics. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition.
Boccia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics was held in the ExCeL from 2 September to 8 September, with a maximum of 104 athletes competing in seven events. There were four individual events, two pair events, and one team event.
Football 7-a-side at the 2012 Summer Paralympics was held in London at the Olympic Hockey Centre, from 1 September to 9 September. Football 7-a-side is played by athletes with cerebral palsy, a condition characterized by impairment of muscular coordination. 96 footballers are expected to compete for one set of medals.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
BC2 is a Paralympic boccia classification. The class is open to people with several different types of disabilities, including cerebral palsy. BC2 players have events open to them in boccia on the Paralympic Games program.
Ibrahima Diallo is an English footballer. He played in the 7-a-side football event at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Jonathan Andrew Fox is a British Paralympic swimmer.
Samuel Ruddock is a Paralympic track cycling athlete who represented Great Britain in the F35 classification in the 100 metres and shot put events, for athletes with cerebral palsy. He is the British Record holder for the F35 Shot Put and the C1 Kilometere Time Trial, specialising in the track sprint events, preparing for his third Paralympic Games at Tokyo 2020.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed, under the name Great Britain, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places for which the team qualified were for six athletes in sailing events.
Alexander William Hendricks is an American cerebral palsy football player. He has paralysis on the left side of his body as a result of complications from a brain biopsy that created 2 strokes and a brain hemorrhage when he was a 13-year-old.
Bryce Boarman is an American Paralympic soccer player. Boarman has cerebral palsy, and attended the University of Colorado Colorado Springs and University of Northern Colorado.
Gavin Sibayan is an American Paralympic football player. A United States Army veteran, Sibayan enlisted in 2001 and would retire at the rank of Staff Sergeant with an Army Commendation Medal and a Purple Heart. In 2007, he was involved in three IED incidents, the third of which left him with Traumatic Brain Injury that resulted in a permanent disability.
Adam Ballou is an American soccer player and cerebral palsy football player. Ballou has cerebral palsy as a result of an intrauterine stroke, he was diagnosed at six months old. He attended James Madison University, graduating in 2015. He started playing soccer when he was three years old, played rec, advanced and travel. He also played on his high school varsity team, and was team captain his junior and senior years.
Keith Johnson is an American Paralympic soccer player. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was young, he played a variety of sports and graduated from East Anchorage High School in 1999.
CP6 is a disability sport classification specific to cerebral palsy. In many sports, it is grouped inside other classifications to allow people with cerebral palsy to compete against people with other different disabilities but the same level of functionality. Sportspeople in this class are ambulatory, and able to walk without the use of an assistive device. Their bodies are constantly in motion. The running form of people in this class is often better than their form while walking.
CP7 is a disability sport classification specific to cerebral palsy. In many sports, it is grouped inside other classifications to allow people with cerebral palsy to compete against people with other different disabilities but with the same level of functionality. Sportspeople in this class can walk but may appear to have a limp as half their body is affected by cerebral palsy.
CP8 is a disability sport classification specific to cerebral palsy. In many sports, it is grouped inside other classifications to allow people with cerebral palsy to compete against people with other different disabilities but the same level of functionality.
Great Britain national cerebral palsy football team is the national cerebral football team for Great Britain that represents the team in international competitions, but primarily the Paralympic Games. They compete at the 1984, 1992, 2008 and 2012 Summer Paralympics. Their best performance was in 1984 when they won the bronze medal.