Saw him once in the bar at The Hilcarter Hotel in Hartlepool after a preseason friendly, never seen someone just pour a pint of Guinness down his throat before - didn't even gulp! On the field though, I was happy when we signed him mainly because he was extremely underrated with the ball on the deck and could be totally unplayable at times - just ask Desailly!
Remember his talk in at the new crown in shields years ago with Charlie Hurley and bally all lovely blokes
Absolute legend and a gentleman to boot. Didn't know Howard Wilkinson had treated him so badly he left. Makes me hate Wilkinson even more than I already did.
Hard to imagine, seriously. I've heard that many stories about him he's hard to even credit as a human. I've not read Matty Piper's book, but my mate has and reckons Wilkinson was an absolute c@nt to the lad when he was injured.
I was playing golf at The K Club in Ireland in June and he was there. A couple if us went over and spoke to him, great bloke and had time for us all.
Well that’s brought back a long forgotten memory I was working at Barclays and helped to run the call centre team for the match. Had to draft loads of extra people in like mortgage and business people as we couldn’t take all the calls. Think sky showed it and kept putting the number on the screen. Was supposed to be card only but loads of Irish people phoned up asking where to send their £10 they’d put in an envelope! The letters kept coming for a few weeks with comical addresses and quite often loads of loose change like It was a whip-round! Lots of the letters just contained cash with no addresses to send anything back to, sometimes stuff like Mary O’Brien, County Mayo so no way of sending anything out to them either Quinny himself phoned up to thank the staff who had mainly volunteered 30 mins, can’t remember if that was before the match or after now - I had intended to go the match but ended up staying to sort this mayhem out
Met him a couple of times. Always came across as a really nice bloke. I’ve told this story a few times but for those who haven’t heard it before… As most on here know, the K family live in Australia and have since 2007. For 12 years after leaving the army I was a cop in Northampton so didn’t get to go to the home games, mainly due to shift work etc. Anyway, in 2001 our son Tom was born, so being the dutiful dad I made damn sure that he would be as miserable as me and indoctrinated him into the ways of SAFC. I registered him as a Junior Black Cat, bought him the kits etc. Come 2007 we were packing up for Australia but Tom had never been to the SOL. Been to Sixfields, but never the SOL. We had already bought tickets for the game against Blackburn Rovers, so I thought I’d chance it and wrote to the club saying that we were emigrating to Australia and we were taking in one last game before we went. To make it special for Tom could he meet SNQ. I didn’t think anything would come of it. About two weeks later, out of the blue, I get a phone call. It was SNQ’s secretary. Mr Quinn has read your letter and would your son like to be the Sunderland mascot for the game? Let me think about that!! So we all go up to Sunderland, Tom is kitted out in his Sunderland kit (which we’ve still got, although it doesn’t fit him now), he does all the mascot stuff, told Roy Keane that SAFC would lose (they did) and we all went up to the boardroom for drinks and nibbles and met SNQ who was the perfect gentleman and spent time with us and talking to Tom. In short it was a very kind gesture that he didn’t have to do but he clearly understood the importance of it to a six year old boy.
Not 100% sure but I believe their was somewhere close by that used to produce dogs which were used to fix railroad tracks to the sleepers , don’t know if dogs were the correct name or a slang name for the fixing .
He was at the club when I fell in love with it. Met him as a kid at the old training ground, he was a f**kin giant to me, met him years later and was eye to eye. I remember his chest the looping volley lob over the keeper against Grimsby in the cup, the 98 play offs, him and Phillips ripping up the Premier, the takeover etc. He was at the club when I was at the impressionable age, great indeed. I ****in love the bloke.
Had the pleasure to meet him once and have to say he was the ultimate gentleman ...took time to chat, give autographs to those who wanted it...nothing was too much bother for him..we are so lucky this man associated with our club
