Sunderland would be poorer place without Quinn (From The Northern Echo)

Sunderland would be poorer place without Quinn

11:33am Wednesday 23rd February 2011 in Blog By Paul Fraser, Chief Football Writer

IF there are supporters questioning and disagreeing with the comments of Niall Quinn in the last seven days, all fans on Wearside should share one common belief: Sunderland have been transformed by their Irish chairman.

Without him there would be no Ellis Short, the American benefactor who has pumped millions of his own cash in to the club, nor would there have been the Drumaville consortium's intervention in 2006 when they bought out Bob Murray's regime.

And it is difficult to imagine where Sunderland, sitting seventh in the Premier League despite a run of three successive defeats, would be if Quinn decided to walk away. He might not have been born and bred in Seaburn, but the Dubliner has the city and the club at heart.

It is that last question Sunderland supporters should be considering this morning. The mighty Quinn is not on the brink, but he has hinted on a couple of occasions within the last seven days that he may have to consider it.

First there was his notes in the match-day programme ahead of last Saturday's visit of Tottenham, where Quinn made the point that he would have to question his role if supporters continued to stay away and watch matches on illegal broadcasts in the pubs and clubs - even on home computers.

And then, after the club's latest set of accounts revealed on Tuesday a pre-tax loss of 27.9m and a wages-to-turnover ratio of more than 70 per cent, Quinn has taken the opportunity to go public again.

Again, he hints towards an end to the progress that has been made unless an extra 6,000 fans can boost their attendance average to around the 44,000 mark. It is that sort of figure he had sold to Short when he was convincing him Sunderland could challenge the best in the top-flight.

"The vision is that with our passion, we have a chance of competing with the best," he explained in Thursday's Daily Express. "In the first season after our last promotion we averaged a fantastic 44,000 and spent most of the season in the bottom three but managed to scrape out of the relegation places in the last few games - that struggle did not seem to bother us at the gate.

"I told Ellis that with a base of 44,000 we could build on that and take on the bigger boys - not with similar investment to the very biggest clubs but with raw passion and emotion. It adds a different component and makes us a big club. Its what makes Sunderland special and difficult to beat.

"That was my vision, that's what I put to Ellis and he bought into that. Our rise on the pitch has been steady and until our recent wobble we've spent much of the winter in the top six or seven but the gates, instead of improving with the team, have gone the other way, down to about 38,000 this season.

"That can't continue. If it does, it may be the end of my vision. I'm not sure I could continue to ask the owner to underwrite that."

To hear Quinn contemplate the end of my vision should be worrying in itself for fans. The problem, however, could be more deep rooted than how he is feeling.

Beyond the illegal broadcasts, the spotlight on the Premier League is such that more and more fans are reluctant to head to a live match every week because of the price.

Quinn accepts that some fans are unable to afford to go, but he is convinced there are thousands more fans from the city and the surrounding area just deliberately choosing to stay away, not through money just choice.

But the worry for the former Sunderland striker, whose final few years of his playing career where spent playing in front of a packed Stadium of Light, should be that the days of 47,000 attending week in and week out are gone.

Unless the Black Cats can force their way in to the Champions League, which would seem unrealistic even though Steve Bruce has done a particularly impressive job, perhaps they have peaked at the number of fans they can attract on a regular basis.

If that is the case, Sunderland, like Quinn has suggested, will have to cut their cloth accordingly, but where that will leave a chairman the club's supporters worship and their Kansas City billionaire owner is anyone's guess.

There is an age-old adage that a football club is bigger than any individual, but one certainty is that Sunderland would be a poorer place without Niall Quinn.