Ken Knighton is a former English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 football manager, most notably at Sunderland A.F.C.

Sunderland A.F.C.

Sunderland Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear who currently play in the Premier League...

Already at the club as a coach, he succeeded caretaker Billy Elliott

Billy Elliott (footballer)

William Henry "Billy" Elliott , born in Bradford, was an English professional footballer and football manager. He played five times for the England national side.- Playing career :...

 as manager in the summer of 1979. Sunderland achieved promotion back to the First Division

Football League First Division

The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

 under Knighton at the first time of asking but subsequent disputes with the club's then new chairman, Tom Cowie

Tom Cowie

Sir Tom Cowie OBE is the honorary Life President of the Arriva Group, formerly known as Cowie Group plc.-Cowie Group:Sir Tom's father, T.S. Cowie headed a business, T. Cowie Ltd, which repaired and sold cycles in Matamba Terrace, Sunderland but this business ceased to exist in the early years of...

, resulted in the departure of both Knighton and his assistant, Frank Clark, towards the end of the 1980-81 season

1980-81 in English football

The 1980–81 season was the 101st season of competitive football in England.-Overview:The Football League introduced a three points for a win system in place of the two points for a win system which had operated since the league's formation in 1889...

. Most supporters believed that Knighton and Clark had formed a talented managerial partnership and had been treated in a highly unjust manner by Cowie.

Knighton was succeeded at Sunderland by Mick Docherty

Mick Docherty

Michael "Mick" Docherty is a former footballer and coach. He is the elder son of famous manager Tommy Docherty....

 on a caretaker basis. Knighton went on to manage Leyton Orient

Leyton Orient F.C.

Leyton Orient F.C. are an English professional football club in East London. They currently play in Football League One and are known to their fans as the O's.Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63...

.

Outside Football

Ken left football in the eighties and went on to develop a career

Career

Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....

 in the telecommunication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

 industry. Ken held sales

Sales

A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....

 management

Management

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...

 positions with GEC-Plessey Telecommunications (GPT) and Cable and Wireless.

External links

• Ken Knighton's management statistics at Soccerbase