It was announced on Friday that the Vice-President of York 9 FC, Jimmy Brennan, would become the club’s first-ever head coach. York 9 FC becomes the fifth team in the Canadian Premier League to make their head coach announcement. Forge FC and Pacific FC have yet to appoint a head coach.

Brennan started his coaching career in 2011 with the Toronto FC U17 Academy team. He then took over as the assistant coach of Toronto FC in 2012 where he coached until 2014. Brennan started working with Aurora FC in 2015 but left at the end of 2017 to focus on what would become York 9 FC.

Brennan grew up around York Region and played youth soccer in the area, but his soccer career took off with the 1993 FIFA U17 World Cup in Japan. He joined Bristol City just one year later in 1994 at the age of 17. He made his professional debut two years later.

In 1999, Brennan became the first Canadian-born player to be sold for over £1,000,000 after joined Nottingham Forest. In 2003, he joined Norwich City and helped them to win promotion to the Premier League. Brennan subsequently became the first Canadian-born outfield player to play in the Premier League. He signed for Southampton in 2006. Also in 2006, Brennan decided to return to Canada and signed on to become the first player and captain in Toronto FC history. He was inducted into the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame in 2015.

Brennan is relatively young for a coach at only 41-years-old. This will be his first time as a head coach of a top-tier team. His only previous experience in coaching at the top-tier of professional soccer came when he was an assistant at Toronto FC. While he was an assistant coach, Toronto increased their league position each year.

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