Quinn claims no interest in Reid’s job
Quinn, who had been assisting Reid with coaching duties at Sunderland this season, was placed in command of the struggling Premiership club on Monday evening following the dismissal of the manager and the majority of his backroom staff.
But in an interview with the Irish Examiner conducted two days before Reid's sacking, the former Irish international striker said: "I've never ever planned to be a manager. As far as coaching, I'm only there as long as Peter Reid needs me."
Quinn reiterated that point yesterday when he said: "There's nothing wonderful or amazing about that, I just want to get the lads physically and mentally prepared. There is going to be a new era at the football club. I understand we will have a new manager before the West Ham game on October 19."
That appointment will have a major influence on Quinn's future in the game. It was Reid, a close friend as well as his boss at Manchester City and Sunderland, who persuaded him not to quit playing altogether after the World Cup and encouraged him onto the Stadium Of Light coaching staff.
Quinn, 36 last Sunday, reveals in today's Irish Examiner Arena supplement that he had already enrolled his daughter Aisling and son Michael into Kildare schools for the start of this school year before Reid encouraged a change of heart.
The three major contenders to replace Reid have all played a big part in Quinn's playing career and not all for the best. Quinn is a former club and international room-mate of hot favourite David O'Leary and is a big admirer of Republic of Ireland's Mick McCarthy, whose odds were slashed yesterday despite publicly committing himself to the Irish cause.
The appointment of either would probably see Quinn staying on in a coaching capacity alongside the more experienced man.
However, in his autobiography to be published this weekend, Quinn tells how another favourite to replace Reid, George Graham, was instrumental in ending his career at Quinn's first club Arsenal.
Quinn said yesterday that his main concern in the wake of Reid's departure was to concentrate on getting his team-mates in the right frame of mind for the next match at home to West Ham.
Nevertheless, Quinn's feeling of shock at Reid's departure will take a long time to disappear. "Peter understood me and without a doubt got the best out of me," he said.
"He probably understood what I was about and knew I had a great desire to succeed. That was my strength. Other guys were quicker than me, more mobile than me, but I worked ever so hard on my touch over the years and I think Peter appreciated that and encouraged me to push as far as I could. The fact that I'm still around at 36 has an awful lot to do with him."
In today's interview, Quinn, a former All-Ireland minor football finalist with Dublin, also dives into the argument over the use of Croke Park as part of the Euro 2008 bid.
"Can you tell me that it's better to have soccer at Croke Park and get people interested and off the streets? Or is it better to have no ground, let the Irish bid fail and see kids have a lack of interest and fall into other things, like drugs and all the rest of it?
"It's really how you value sport and if people value sport for all the right reasons and if people in the GAA maintain the level of what sport is forthen they might concede that it is better to have any sport in there. I'd love to see it but, I dunno, political pressure might be the only thing that forces it."
Quinn also reveals how he has assisted Gaelic Players' Association chief executive Dessie Farrell in getting them help from the Professional Footballers' Association in England.
"I've spoken to Dessie Farrell at length several times and I gave him a phone number for Brendan Batson when he was at the PFA to give him some assistance. Not in making Gaelic football professional, but really to give them a little bit of a stepping stone in helping to show Dessie how it all started for football, because football guys in the 1950s felt so cheated.
"If all parties agreed that because of the sacrifices the players are making they are missing out in other ways, then I think you can have some sort of ground for allowing the players to be compensated and still maintain the tribalism and that gem, that hidden treasure, that hurling and Gaelic football has."
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