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Lee Sharpe
Personal information
Full name	Lee Stuart Sharpe
Date of birth	May 27, 1971 (age 35)
Place of birth	Halesowen, England
Height	6'0"
Playing position	Midfielder
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1988 1988-1996 1996-1999 1998-1999 1999 1999-2002 2001 2002 2003-2004 2004	Torquay United Manchester United Leeds United → Sampdoria (loan) → Bradford City (loan) Bradford City → Portsmouth (loan) Exeter City Grindávik Garforth Town	14 (3) 193 (21) 30 (5) - (-) 9 (2) 47 (2) 17 (0) 4 (1) - (-) - (-)
National team
1991-1995	England	8 (0)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 5/1/2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Lee Stuart Sharpe, (born May 27, 1971 in Halesowen, West Midlands), is an English football player currently playing for Garforth Town. Predominantly a left winger, Lee once played for Manchester United and was a promising young player in English football, but his career went into rapid decline at an early age. He has achieved renewed fame by appearing on reality television shows.

Contents 1 Professional football career 1.1 Clubs 2 After football 3 Personal life 4 References 5 Footnotes

An Aston Villa supporter, Sharpe began his career at Torquay United. However, in his first season with them (1987-88), after only 16 games, Manchester United noted his potential and swooped to sign him in June for £200,000, a record fee at the time for a YTS player.

He soon broke into the first team, initially playing out of position at left back before replacing Ralph Milne as left-winger in the 1990-91 season. He played a key part in United's success in the European Cup Winners' Cup that season scoring a hat-trick against Arsenal at Highbury in the 1990 League Cup. United eventually won the game 2-6. Sharpe himself, cites this as one of the best memories in his footballing career^[1].

Having established himself as a left winger, Sharpe earned a call up to the England squad, although he was unable to replace John Barnes as first choice left winger. Unfortunately, he was then out of the game for long periods of time through injury and illness (he suffered from viral meningitis) and when his fitness recovered the form of Ryan Giggs meant he had to play out of position at left back or on the right wing, competing for a place with Andrei Kanchelskis. In total he played 265 games for the Red Devils during eight years there, scoring 36 goals.

Despite his injury history, Leeds United signed him for £4.5 million in the summer of 1996, making him their record signing. Again his time at Leeds was beset by further injuries. He made 26 Premiership appearances in 1996-97, scoring five goals, but a pre-season knee injury ruled him out for the entire 1997-98 season and he was unable to regain his place in the team on recovery.

In the autumn of 1998, Lee Sharpe was loaned to Italian Serie A strugglers Sampdoria, but soon fell out of favour and in the New Year he returned to England. A £250,000 fee took him to Bradford City in March 1999 and he helped in securing the club's promotion to the Premiership after 77 years outside the top division. He also helped preserve the club's Premiership status in 1999-00.

In 2000-01, Sharpe lost his place in the Bradford team and just before Christmas went on loan to Division One Portsmouth F.C. He returned to Bradford during the 2001-02 season but when his contract expired at the end of the season he was given a free transfer. A brief spell at Exeter City then followed before he moved to Grindavík in Iceland. In June 2003 he announced his retirement from first class football at the age of 32.

During 2003-04, Lee Sharpe made a brief return to football in the Kidderminster Sunday League before signing for Northern Counties East Premier League side Garforth Town the following summer.

Lee Sharpe was capped 8 times by the England team between 1991 and 1995.

• Torquay United (1987-1988)
• Manchester United (1988-1996)
• Leeds United (1996-1999)
• Sampdoria (1998, loan)
• Bradford City (1999-2002)
• Exeter City (2002-2003)
• Grindavík (2003-2004)
• Garforth Town (2004)

In 2004 and 2006, Sharpe was a football pundit for ESPN Star in Asia, and together with Les Ferdinand, is a celebrity host on the game show "Kickoff" where he is known as "Sharpy." Sharpe is a pundit on BBC's Match of the Day 2 and "Football Focus", and during the 2006 World Cup presented a cup blog from Germany with video clips and photos for Yahoo. Sharpe appeared in one episode of the footballing drama Dream Team.

Sharpe has also developed a career in reality television. He appeared as a competitor in the 2005, ITV television show Celebrity Wrestling, under the name "Sharpe Shooter." He is best known though for appearing in Celebrity Love Island. During his time on the Island Sharpe courted the attentions of many of the show's beautiful ladies, most notably TV presenter Jayne Middlemiss, who confessed to "never having felt like this before about someone," but Sharpe eventually dated Abi Titmuss.

On 25 August 2005 Lee's autobiography My Idea of Fun was published, describing his time as a footballer and his resulting celebrity status.

In 2007 Sharpe appeared as a contestant in ITV's Dancing On Ice. He was eliminated from the competition on 3 March.

In November 2005 Lee visited York to attend a graduation ceremony at the Minster. He later dined in the popular VJ's Art Bar which has become affectionately known to locals as 'The Lee Sharpe Bar'

Sharpe dated Joanne Petty from 2003, and the couple lived together in Leeds. They split in 2005 after two years, shortly before he went on "Celebrity Love Island" and fell for co-star Abi Titmuss.

After he dated other women, Sharpe and Titmuss split up, but by February 2007 he was back with Petty^[2].

1. ^ http://sport.guardian.co.uk/smalltalk/story/0,,1311163,00.html
2. ^ http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=jo%2Ds-lover%2D-lee-%26method=full%26objectid=18573331%26siteid=62484-name_page.html

Preceded by Matthew Le Tissier

PFA Young Player of the Year 1991

Succeeded by Ryan Giggs