A YEAR after joining Sunderland as a player in 1997, Niall Quinn was part of a huge marketing exercise aimed at drumming up support to fill the Stadium of Light after a move from the club's spiritual home, Roker Park.

A decade later, as club chairman, Quinn is at it again. He wants to bring back those supporters who became disillusioned with the club's financial problems and relegations in 2003 and last season.

There is still a long way to go but Quinn, who has written to 7,000 disaffected former season ticket holders and will begin a series of large scale meetings next week in an attempt to get the 40,000 crowds back in the Championship, feels it can be done.

"I'm happy there's belief in the air again," said Quinn. "We had a night in the sports bar for box holders to thank them for their support recently. I asked the players to come but said they didn't have to. I didn't want them to come if they just sat in a corner and disappeared after half an hour.

"They came in their club ties, they didn't stick together and they mingled with everyone there. That showed to me that we are starting to connect with the people again. They understand this club.

"That gave me a great feeling. I was as a proud of that than I have been anything else so far this season. The effort the players put in and the amount of feedback and letters I got from that night was fantastic. The players must take credit for that."

Although there were more than 36,000 at the Stadium of Light for last weekend's visit of Derby County - more than double the attendance at Blackburn the following day - Quinn is desperate for more.

"We would have done that in the earlier days because we had to go from a 20,000 crowd at Roker to a 40,000 here," he said.

"We had this great facility but there had to be a big marketing push. At that time I would have been one of the first players to have thought 'we've done our bit now let's get out of here'. But you learn and mature and you see the bigger picture.

"Carlos Edwards and Tobias Hysen are two recent signings who have been fantastic. It's at the stage where they are going into dressing rooms before youth team matches and giving team talks."

Quinn persistently talks about the ball-park figure of 40,000, some 9,000 shy of the stadium's full capacity, but he is aware that something special is required to bring them all back.

The roadshow he is about to embark on, starting at a social club in Washington on Tuesday, will be designed to speed up the process.

Today Sunderland could climb into the top two of the Championship if they overcome second-placed West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns.

"I would love to have 49,000 through the gates paying a quid in but the banks wouldn't let me do that. I would look a fool. The balance between making it affordable, attractive and making sure we can compete is what I'm all about," said Quinn.

"I have to aim for 48,000 in the Championship. Roy Keane took this job on the basis that this club can match his ambition. His ambition is to take this club as far as he can.

"The beauty of this place is that you have a football man running the club and a world-renowned football figure managing the team. Our ideas are very similar. I am not here as an accountant. I'm not here as a banking guy, I'm here as a guy who wants to push and squeeze the finances to the very last."

While many questioned how well Keane would perform in his first season as a manager, Quinn is taking pride in his appointment.

"It was a gamble in many people's eyes, a long shot," said Quinn. "But not in mine. If you stick to the simple things then you get things sorted.

"There were three things that needed addressing. The passion needed to be restored, the belief needed to be brought to the area and the losing feeling had to be erased, so we needed a winner.

"You add those things up and Roy Keane sits on top of them all. .

"I knew he would bring a lot of things to the table. I knew he would bring the passion, I knew he would bring the belief back and I knew the players would respond."

l Sunderland's visit to Southampton on April 9 is now on Sky, with kick-off at 5.15pm.