Stephen John Thornber is an 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...

 former professional football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

er and current youth team manager of Bradford City

Bradford City A.F.C.

Bradford City Association Football Club is an English association football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, playing in League Two....

.

Thornber, a midfielder

Midfielder

A midfielder is an association football position. Some midfielders play a more defensive role, while others blur the boundaries between midfielders and forwards. The number of midfielders a team uses during a match may vary, depending on the team's formation and each individual player's role...

, began his career as a junior with Halifax Town

Halifax Town A.F.C.

Halifax Town Association Football Club were an English football team who most recently played in the Conference National, although prior to that they participated in the Football League for over eighty years...

 in 1983. He remained with the Shaymen for five years, making 104 league appearances and scoring four goals.

In 1988, he moved to Swansea City in a £10,000 deal. In three years at the Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 club he made 117 appearances, scoring six goals.

His next move, in 1992, was to Blackpool

Blackpool F.C.

Blackpool Football Club are an English football club founded in 1887 from the Lancashire seaside town of Blackpool. They are competing in the 2011–12 season of the The Championship, the second tier of professional football in England, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the...

, then managed by Billy Ayre

Billy Ayre

William "Billy" Ayre was an English footballer who played for three different clubs in a sixteen-year professional career, making over three hundred League appearances in the process. After retiring from the playing side of the game, he became a manager, and took the helm at five different clubs...

, a former teammate and manager of Thornber during his time at Halifax. After a year and just under a quarter-century of appearances at Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road

Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...

, he joined Scunthorpe United

Scunthorpe United F.C.

Scunthorpe United Football Club is an English association football team based in the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, who play in the Football League One....

on a free transfer.