Cunningham ready for one more test

IT WAS the obvious question to put to a player with 17 years and 604 league appearances under his belt: why do it?

Why join a club that dropped out of the Premiership with faces redder than their shirts? Why put those 35-year-old bones through the rigours of the Championship, a division with less talent than the Rose of Tralee? Hang up the boots Kenny, relax on that Premiership pension, take Niall’s seat in the commentary box.

“There wasn’t a huge amount of options on my table. I had to be realistic,” was the honest answer from Sunderland new boy Kenny Cunningham.

“At 35 there wasn’t too many Premiership clubs knocking on my door, which was to be expected.

“I had an open mind and was really just waiting for the phone to ring. I had to check my mobile phone battery a couple of times to make sure it was still working because there weren’t too many calls. And that’s a fact.

“When it gets to the second week in June and most teams are back training, there is always the possibility that the right move would not come along for me. But when Niall picked up the phone, it was a very easy decision to make. Getting back into a football environment and hopefully make a small contribution is what I want to do.”

Quinner wasn’t the first man to call Cunningham. St Patrick’s Athletic boss John McDonnell rang the former Ireland captain having heard from a grapevine source he fancied a return home.

Unfortunately the Saints couldn’t quite pull it off, but watch this space.

Cunningham is likely to play on no longer than this season at Championship level but he believes he’s found one of the best places to wave goodbye from.

“That part of the country, the northeast part of England, has always been somewhere I’ve always liked to go with previous teams, Millwall, Wimbledon and Birmingham.

“There’s a great atmosphere inside the stadiums, it’s the same at Newcastle and Middlesbrough to be fair. I think they really have a passion for their football; it’s still a working class game to a large extent.”

At the end of last season Cunningham was said to be unemployable having departed Birmingham City on what you could probably call ‘bad terms’.

The skipper lashed out at his chairman and his manager, blaming them for their part in the club’s relegation. It was a sad end to a relationship with Steve Bruce that had begun in 2002 when he signed Kenny.

Bruce claimed he would be the best ‘free transfer ever’ before Cunningham signed for Sunderland and he backed him to continue playing this season, even before the player himself decided so.

“I’ve got no doubt that if Kenny wants to be able to continue on, he will be able to. Physically he looks after himself better than anyone else,” he said.

“He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke, he trains well, he is in first at the club in the morning and does everything possible that a professional can do these days.”

The Dubliner will probably form a partnership with Stephen Caldwell in the heart of defence tomorrow when Sunderland head to Coventry’s Ricoh Park, for their Championship opener.

A regular starting slot seems assured, at least early in the season, but there are no guarantees for the veteran, a stand out — age wise — in a youthful Sunderland side.

He’s one of a handful of Irish players who could be in the starting XI tomorrow, but this pre-season, Daryl Murphy’s goals aside, the main Irish attraction has been Niall Quinn.

Plunging neck deep into the role of ‘chairmanager’, Cunningham’s former international team mate did what most normal ex-players wouldn’t.

But, as Cunningham attests, Quinner was never going to be happy with just one job.

He said: “It’s not an obvious step, no, but Niall’s the type of person who can turn his hand to most things — club chairman, manager, successful businessman, after dinner speaker, Sky TV pundit, whatever it is. The important thing is that he has good people around him. And I think Niall appreciates that.

“We needed it sorted though. We needed someone in place as soon as we could. Niall has been working hard to get someone in, he had someone in mind but it wasn’t possible.

“The next best thing is to install himself, we’ll get behind him, he’s go the respect of the players from the time he spent here. He’s determined to bring the glory days back, knows the players and he’s got the heart of the club in mind.

With a perfect pre-season record, preparations have gone better than any could have hoped for up Sunderland way.

17 years and 604 appearances later, Cunningham hopes there’s a happy ending too.