ABF MK1 GTi will not start, no spark

Hi, I have a MK1 Gti that has an ABF conversion using the standard MK3 GTi ECU etc. I did the conversion myself learning from this very forum (not sure what happened to my account) many moons ago, so I have pretty much forgotten everything! The car has been stood for a few months I tried to start but the battery was dead. I replaced the battery but then the car would not start. It seems to have no spark. I tested the coil by grounding the negative side to earth with a jumper lead and the spark was good. I have been through the connectors and such like and checked all fuses. Now I am out of ideas. I have no diagnostic port because I forgot to get that bit from the doner car.
Any help or suggestions will be gratefully received.

Anyone? Rubjohnny around these parts?

similar issues with my mk2, it really needs a good battery, i see you have tried a good one. would try jumping from another car too. sometimes need that little help. rubberjohny is on here, will help you out when you speak his name three times and hop on 1 leg

I noticed that the rev counter was not moving when cranking over. Would this suggest the crank position sensor is at fault?
Edited to add Rubjohnny. That's twice, once more and a hop on one leg right?

could be all kinds of things, but crank sensor is always a suspect.

get diagnostics sorted, its dead easy so long as you at least ran the grey/white diagnostic wire inside the car from ecu pin 43. if so, you get yourself a 16 pin plug from just about anything 1996 onwards. connect grey/white to pin 7, give it live to pin 16 and earth to pin 4.

then you can check to see if the ecu is even powering up right, look at engine rpm measuring block to see if its seeing a signal from crank sensor etc