Niall Quinn

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This article is about the footballer. For the racing driver, see Niall Quinn (racing driver).
Niall Quinn
Personal information
Full name Niall John Quinn
Date of birth October 6, 1966 (age 40)
Place of birth    Dublin, Ireland
Height 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Nickname Quinny, Disco Pants,
Saint Niall (By Sunderland fans)
Playing position Striker
Youth clubs
Manortown United
Arsenal
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
1983–1990
1990–1996
1996–2002		 Arsenal
Manchester City
Sunderland		 067 (14)
204 (66)
203 (61)   
National team
1986–2002 Republic of Ireland 092 (21)
Teams managed
2006 Sunderland

1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only.
* Appearances (Goals)

Niall John Quinn (Irish: Niall Seán Ó Cuinn) (Honorary) MBE (b. October 6, 1966 in Dublin, Ireland) is a former Irish international footballer, and the current chairman of Sunderland. He is also heavily involved in the management side of horse racing. His true love is hot dogs and gets all his tactics from Glenn Roeder. He has a close relationship with a man called thompson

Quinn was considered an archetypal old fashioned target-man.[citation needed]However, Quinn possessed good ball control, the result of countless hours additional training on his own.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Football Playing Career

[edit] Club career

He played as a youth for Irish club Manortown United, before signing professional forms with English club Arsenal in 1983. He scored on his first-team debut against Liverpool in December 1985, but his form for the rest of that season was decidedly patchy.

Prior to being recruited to the Arsenal youth team Quinn played in the 1983 All-Ireland Minor Hurling Championship final with Dublin.

Quinn took time to find form, but by 1986-87 had become a regular in the Arsenal side, helping them reach and then win the 1987 League Cup final. However, the arrival of fellow centre-forward Alan Smith that summer forced Quinn out of the Arsenal first team, and he became a fringe player. In all he scored 20 goals in 94 matches for the Gunners. He missed out on a league title winner's medal in 1989 after failing to appear in enough games.

Manchester City signed Quinn for £800,000 in March 1990. He scored 22 times in his first full season, and he went on to spend six years at the club, scoring 78 goals in 245 appearances; his time at City was hampered by a cruciate ligament injury in 1993-94.

His most notable game for City was 20 April 1991 when he scored early on and then saved a Dean Saunders penalty as City beat Derby County 2-1, relegating Derby.[1] City goalkeeper Tony Coton had been sent off before half time for fouling Saunders to concede the penalty. At this time teams rarely, if ever, named goalkeepers as substitutes, so Quinn replaced Coton in goal.

Quinn finished his career with a highly successful spell at Sunderland, joining the north-east club in 1996, although he missed six months of his first season due to a knee injury - similar to the one which ruined his World Cup chances three years earlier. His partnership with striker Kevin Phillips was one of the most prolific in the Football League and helped the club to promotion to the Premiership. Quinn also has the distinction of being the first player to score at Sunderland's Stadium of Light, against Manchester City in 1997. He won both the Sunderland and North East Sportswriters' Player of the Year awards in 1999 after scoring 21 goals in Sunderland's record-breaking Division One title-winning season.

[edit] International career

Quinn made his debut for the Republic of Ireland in 1986, and went on to earn 92 caps . He retired as his country's all-time scorer with 21 goals; this record was surpassed by Robbie Keane in October 2004. Quinn played for his country at two World Cups, in 1990 and 2002; he missed the 1994 FIFA World Cup because of injury. Quinn was also a member of the Irish squad that participated in the 1988 European Football Championship though he did not play.

Quinn famously scored the equaliser against the Netherlands in the 1990 which allowed Ireland to progress to the second round of that tournament. In the 2002 tournament, his header set up Robbie Keane's late equaliser against Germany, which was the only goal Germany conceded before the final.

[edit] Song

Niall also had his own song entitled "Niall Quinn's Disco Pants". The song was originally created by Manchester City fans during a night out on a pre-season tour in Penola, Italy. It was 1992.

There had been a bust-up with City team-mate Steve McMahon and Quinn had removed his torn and bloodied shirt and was dancing with Rick Holden wearing just a pair of cut-off jeans. He was "hardly aware" that there were a group of hardcore City fans watching and they treated him to "the first performance of the song that will follow me till the end of my career."[2]

The chorus went, to the tune of the standard football chant 'Here We Go':

Niall Quinn's disco pants are the best,
They go up from his arse to his chest,
They're better than Adam and the Ants,
Niall Quinn's disco pants!

The song was adopted by Sunderland fans and released as a single by the club's devoted fanzine A Love Supreme, reaching number 59 in the UK Singles Charts in April 1999.

[edit] Testimonial

In 2002, he donated the entire proceeds of his testimonial match between Sunderland and the Republic of Ireland to charity, an act for which he received a number of awards, including an honorary MBE. Instead of receiving an appearance fee for the game, all the players received a letter from a sick child. Quinn played for both teams during the match, which is thought to have raised over £1 million.[citation needed]

[edit] Pundit

Quinn retired in 2003 at the age of 37, taking a brief coaching role at Sunderland. Quinn has also made appearances as a television pundit and commentator for televised matches involving his former teams with Sky Sports.

Quinn also released an acclaimed autobiography Niall Quinn - The Autobiography (2002), which was ghostwritten by Tom Humphries and was nominated for a William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. The book is not structured chronologically, but rather in the context of Quinn's career swansong, the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.

[edit] Sunderland Chairman

Heading the Drumaville Consortium of wealthy Irish businessmen, in June 2006 Quinn successfully brokered a deal to buy a controlling stake in Sunderland AFC.

On July 3, the Drumaville Consortium's bid was officially announced and Niall Quinn became the chairman and manager of Sunderland. This made him one of two chairman-managers in the League, the other being Graham Turner of Hereford. The deal was finalised on July 27 2006, with sufficient shares being sold to the consortium in order for them to take complete control.

His managerial career did not get off to a good start as the team lost its first four league games in a row. On August 22 Sunderland played Bury away in the Carling Cup where they lost 2-0.

After the match Quinn said that a new manager would be appointed by Sunderland's next game. Quinn retired as manager, paving the way for Roy Keane to take charge. This was highly unexpected considering the huge rift between the two arising from Keane's infamous ejection from the 2002 World Cup. Keane was appointed manager of the club on 28 August 2006.

[edit] Playing statistics

Club football (all competitions, including substitute appearances)

International football

  • Ireland: 92 appearances, 21 goals

[edit] Managerial stats

Team Nat From To Record
G W L D Win %
Sunderland Flag of England July 25, 2006 August 30, 2006 6 1 5 0 16.66

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ The Guardian
  2. ^ Niall Quinn, The Autobiography (Headline Publishing, 2002), 182.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Kevin Ball (caretaker)		 Sunderland manager
2006		 Succeeded by
Roy Keane


Flag of Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland squad - 1990 FIFA World Cup Quarter-finalists Flag of Republic of Ireland

1 Bonner | 2 Morris | 3 Staunton | 4 McCarthy | 5 Moran | 6 Whelan | 7 McGrath | 8 Houghton | 9 Aldridge | 10 Cascarino | 11 Sheedy | 12 O'Leary | 13 Townsend | 14 Hughton | 15 Slaven | 16 Sheridan | 17 Quinn | 18 Stapleton | 19 Kelly | 20 Byrne | 21 McLoughlin | 22 Peyton | Coach: Charlton
Flag of Republic of Ireland Republic of Ireland squad - 2002 FIFA World Cup Flag of Republic of Ireland

1 Given | 2 Finnan | 3 Harte | 4 Cunningham | 5 Staunton | 6 Roy Keane | 7 McAteer | 8 Holland | 9 Duff | 10 Robbie Keane | 11 Kilbane | 12 Kinsella | 13 Connolly | 14 Breen | 15 Dunne | 16 Kiely | 17 Quinn | 18 G. Kelly | 19 Morrison | 20 O'Brien | 21 Reid | 22 Carsley | 23 A. Kelly | Coach: McCarthy
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