You ain’t seen nothing like the mighty Quinn

TWO previously despised football chairmen must be struggling to wipe the smug grins from their faces this week.

Doug Ellis was hated at Aston Villa yet bided his time in order to flog his beloved club to the right person. Lifetime fans such as Terry Brown at West Ham and the Halls and Shepherds at Newcastle took the first offers that came and their clubs now look doomed.

Similarly, there was a time when Bob Murray was seen as the root of all evil as his time at Sunderland came to an end.

And whilst it could have been ourselves looking anxiously over our shoulders as the credit crunch and idiot billionaires tighten their grip on Premier League clubs, instead I spent a soccer-free Saturday glad that we waited for Drumaville.

When there’s no football to ruin weekends it’s easy to have a look in the SAFC garden and see just how rosy it has become over the last couple of years. I can’t imagine that Niall Quinn loves Sunderland any less than I or any other Mackem does although the biggest task of his reign as chairman is looming.

Roy Keane’s contract is close to expiring and whilst both sides seem confident of a deal being done, we’re used to being let down on Wearside.

Disappointment that has seen us twice break the record-low points total for a Premier League side, not witnessed a home win against our biggest rivals, Newcastle, since 1980 and that has also witnessed us come within one defeat of the all-time longest losing streak in English football. Just as everything is starting to go our way it’d be a huge blow to see Keane walk away.

This is a man who is such a perfectionist he’s rattled through over 60 transfer deals in less than two and a half years in order to get his team right. A guy so obsessed with success that he’s changed everything from the size of our pitch to the colour of the skirting boards in the players’ tunnel in order to give us an advantage. He shunned an open-top bus parade through the city to celebrate topping the Championship in his first season in charge. He dropped three players for a trip to Barnsley as they were late.

Keane’s pursuit of perfection has delighted Sunderland fans not used to this sort of winning mentality, but we have been forced into getting used to the idea of him leaving one day. The man himself has always denied talk of SAFC being a stepping stone, instead wanting to build a dynasty, but I’d be surprised if Keane is still around to see us achieve the sorts of milestones he talks about.

I suspect that Roy’s career will only go in one direction and that’s up. He’s too focussed, too determined and has the sort of aura about him that makes you believe every word he says. But he’s not the most important part of our club, not by a long shot.

One man brought him here, having rescued our club from what looked like oblivion. That man scored goals for fun when he played alongside Kevin Phillips, kept a clean sheet when he played for us as an emergency goalkeeper, was a coach in the days after Peter Reid left and was manager for six games before Keane arrived. He’s now chairman and has contributed as much to Sunderland Football Club as any other person in our history.

And it’s for that reason that regardless of how negotiations with Keane go, there’s only one man I want to spend the next 20 years at Sunderland. Niall Quinn, we love you.

* Martyn McFadden www.a-love-supreme.com