Niall Quinn has revealed his big Martin O’Neill regret at Sunderland.
Quinn’s time with the Black Cats overlapped O’Neill’s by only a few months, as he ended his six-year involvement as chairman and then Director of International Development in February 2012.
At that time, O’Neill was only two months into a role that would last just shy of 16 months.
Quinn reckons the Derryman would have enjoyed a longer and more successful reign had he remained at the Stadium of Light.
Speaking to the club’s YouTube channel about his time as chairman, Quinn said: “Martin O’Neill was flying; I was delighted Martin had come in.
“I just find it hard looking back as to how Ellis (Short, then owner and chairman) and Martin didn’t gel and Martin could have been there for years to come. That’s the way I thought it was going to happen, but it didn’t.
“Have I regrets about that? Yeah. I wish I was around to have been between the two of them, maybe looking back, because I think you had a meeting of two great minds there that were probably clashing as opposed to someone in the middle to keep the peace.
“I think that’s probably the one regret I had, that when I did leave I wasn’t there to support Martin, or indeed to support Ellis to make sure he was happy with the way things were going.”
Eight months after his Sunderland departure, O’Neill got the Ireland job, with Roy Keane as his assistant.
Quinn continued: “That (O’Neill’s departure) began, I think, a demise that eventually, despite hanging on for a little while, would see the club go down two divisions.
“I wouldn’t change a lot, but I think the one thing I would change is that I’d maybe have gotten to the end of that season.
“Looking back, I left in February or March, I think. Even though it finished alright, things were in good shape; Martin had done a great job, and it looked like they were going to sign a few players; it just didn’t happen.
“Then there were a succession of managers.”
He added of Short: “As a chairman, I couldn’t have had a better owner.”
Quinn also went into detail about the 2006 takeover of Sunderland by the Drumaville Consortium and how a last-gasp London meeting with Anglo Irish Bank officials led to the group buying their controlling stake.
The Black Cats were in desperate need of a cash injection at the time.
Quinn recalled: “What was most prevailing was they had just let 90 people go from the staff, and it was a really horrible time at the club.
“The worst points total ever to get relegated, staff being made redundant, 14 professional players were left; it was pretty low, pretty flat. But to me, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“We weren’t allowed to sign players for money for the first few weeks. Scottish Bank, who were owed a lot of money, £22 million, I think, pulled out of the deal at the last minute; they didn’t like what we were or who we were.
“So we had to find money overnight, and literally we were playing Coventry’s first game of the season.
“On the Friday when I should be training with the team, I was down in London with Anglo Irish Bank trying to get money to make sure the deal went ahead. That’s how tight it all was.
“Imagine my first business gig, and Anglo Irish Bank let me go on the train back up to Durham with a guarantee of the £22 million to pay to Scottish Bank. So it was mad stuff.
“I hadn’t been to business school; I’d left school at 15 or 16, but it started to work.
“Obviously I struggled at the start, but when Roy (Keane) came (as manager) and I was able to go off and do my job and he did his, the belief came in the air.
“Thanks to the guys in Drumaville, we were able to get the club back into shape. It was a matter of getting it as high up as we could over the next few years. But it was a strange time.
“Did I spend my career thinking I was going to be chairman of a football club? No. It happened.”
