From a teenager at Arsenal to the Sunderland boardroom, Niall Quinn has always brought much-needed integrity to football
The tributes for Niall Quinn following the Irishman's decision to step down from the board at Sunderland on Monday have been profuse, heartfelt and glowing. The club's owner, Ellis Short, anointed the man he succeeded as chairman "a legend", the manager, Martin O'Neill, dubbed him "truly iconic" and "Mr Sunderland" while some fans petitioning the Wearsiders to rename the South Stand at the Stadium of Light in his honour have beatified Quinn as "Saint Niall". In the 16 years since moving to Roker Park he has given service as player, captain, manager, chairman and director, a record of career advancement that can be rivalled only in achievement and veneration by Roy Race. Popularity across the game rarely survives the requirements of tribalism yet remarkably Quinn leaves Sunderland with his esteem not only in tact but enhanced.
When he scored on his league debut for Arsenal at the age of 19 in 1985, he was the epitome of a scrawny, gangly centre-forward who looked as if the traditional diet of sherry and raw eggs had yet to do their work of adding heft to his stature. A year later in George Graham's first season as Arsenal's manager Quinn led the line with a maturity beyond his experience, creating chances for the sprightly Martin Hayes and Perry Groves and the mercurial Charlie Nicholas.
During that breakthrough season when Arsenal won the League Cup his mullet was even more abundant than Chris Waddle's and the denseness of growth at the back made him appear as if he was wearing a Davy Crockett hat made of hair. Despite his impact his emergence was curtailed because Graham believed his sheer presence made the side tactically predictable. "He is brave and workmanlike," his manager said. "But he was such a towering player that too many of our advances were telegraphed." It seemed unfair that he should be jettisoned for the failings of his colleagues, the exceptionally tall player typecast as the equivalent of catnip for team-mates who find one an irresistible target, but the purchase of Alan Smith gave Arsenal more subtle options and for two and a half seasons Quinn became a peripheral figure.
Those lost years were characterised by an uncommon thirst and the type of scrapes in snooker halls and at racecourses that make for anecdote gold in his autobiography. One prize from those days was the battered Jag he won in a bet and, turning up for his first day of training at Manchester City in 1990 when Arsenal finally sold him, his mode of transport immediately endeared him to his new team-mates. He quickly channelled the frustration of having made only 20 league appearances since Smith replaced him in the Arsenal starting XI into a determination to prove he could establish himself as a First Division No9 and his four goals in nine games helped to take City from 18th place on the day he joined in March to the safety of 14th by the season's end.
The next year he scored 20 goals and on the day he reached that landmark against Derby County he gave the Kippax a moment to treasure when he deputised for the red-carded Tony Coton in goal and, in a borrowed shirt that brushed his navel, saved Dean Saunders's penalty. His wholehearted prowess as a forward had already captivated the City fans but he went on to burnish his standing with them with escapades such as this and the clothes he was reduced to on a pre-season tour of Italy in a nightclub after a punch-up with Steve McMahon, which gave rise to the commemoration of his trousers in the song "Niall Quinn's Disco Pants".
His treatment by Alan Ball and Francis Lee during City's 1995-96 season which ended with their relegation after a draw with Liverpool when Ball had thought a point would secure safety and Quinn, who had been substituted, attempted to disabuse his team-mates of that false notion, temporarily soured his affection for the club and he moved to Sunderland with something to prove again. Overcoming injury and another relegation he and Kevin Phillips made a rampant partnership in their first season back in the Premier League, feasting on the crosses supplied by Allan Johnston and Nicky Summerbee to score 44 goals between them.
Even after retirement he could not get the club out of his system and in 2006 he headed the Drumaville consortium that bought out the beleaguered owner Bob Murray. "If you're a Sunderland fan at six, you don't change to Liverpool at 13. It's like the GAA [Gaelic Athletic Association], you're with your club or your county forever," he said. "Somebody else pointed this out to me. Because I am a GAA person first and foremost, that parochialism is probably one of the things that drew me back here. It's like something's got under my skin." For six games he had to sit in as caretaker manager, following the transition made by Jimmy Hill and Dundee United's Jim McLean from dressing room to manager's office to boardroom, before persuading Roy Keane to put their differences aside and take the job.
In five years as chairman he employed his charm and appetite for community and charity work to reconnect the club with its city and leaves it as much a folk hero on Wearside as he is in Ireland. There are no airs to him and he has simply mucked in with whatever task he has taken on. By bringing stability to his beloved club he leaves with many in the game recognising that occasionally some people are not too good to be true.