SOCCER ANGLES:Niall Quinn's enthusiasm for Sunderland won people over, both locally and beyond, writes MICHAEL WALKER

THE PLANELOADS no longer fly in from Galway and Cork for home games, the men from Drumaville have left the departure lounge, Roy Keane has gone, and now the man without whom what came to be known as “SundIreland” would not and could not have happened, Niall Quinn, has stepped aside, too. The times, they have changed on Wearside.

SundIreland was a mini-story contained within a much larger 15-year relationship between Quinn and Sunderland. It was a slogan, yes, but one that recognised the refreshed Irish influence at the Stadium of Light.

And it was immense, not just off the pitch, but on it: remember the transfer market scramble Keane was immediately thrust into on taking the manager’s job? Graham Kavanagh, David Connolly and Liam Miller were three of those bought within hours of Keane’s arrival.

Keane won his first game, at Derby, then his second at Leeds – Miller, Kavanagh and Stephen Elliott scored Sunderland’s three goals at Elland Road. Cork, Dublin, Dublin.

Quinn reflected this week that the moment he considers Day One at the club was a meeting at the Cheltenham Festival in March 2006 with the former head of the Kerry Group, Denis Brosnan.

Quinn, then trying to get Drumaville together, said he sat down with Brosnan and was given “a masterclass in what was required. I took a notebook, and filled it”.

So there was Ireland running through Sunderland even before the 2006 takeover. But regardless of his birth certificate, it was Quinn’s enthusiasm for Sunderland that won people over, both locally and beyond.

“We’ve lost our biggest cheerleader,” said a Sunderland season ticket holder on Wednesday.

It was said with genuine sadness because Sunderland as a place and as a population rarely attracts the sort of praise that Quinn heaped upon it. A Newcastle fanzine regularly refers to it as “Albania-on-Wear”.

But Quinn really was/is smitten. It was, and is, not an act. Quinn can sometimes be accused of romanticism when it comes to the club – and there is no harm in that – but then he can remember the facts, the noise of a night such as January 31st, 2001 when Sunderland hosted Manchester United in front of 47,000. Sunderland were second, United were top. Andy Cole scored the only goal, but it showed the heights Sunderland had climbed on the back of the goals of Quinn and Kevin Phillips.

You don’t forget that, and Quinn didn’t. It was why he became evangelical about filling the Stadium of Light.

But as he said this week, he cannot keep saying the same things year in, year out.

There were just under 35,000 at the stadium last Saturday for the 2-2 draw with West Brom. Wearside was not rolling in wealth before this unending recession and it has not been a thrilling beginning to their season. The club needs momentum. Hence Quinn’s reduced role has been labelled as oddly-timed.

But he explained this has been in the pipeline for a while, the club needs a change at the top and there is no better man than the owner, Ellis Short.

Short’s investment in Sunderland, including buying it and pumping in money for transfers and wages is estimated at around €116 million since he first took a share three years ago. That’s a lot of money, but then he does have a Premier League club to show for it.

It is maintaining that status and developing it that now falls to Short and his board, which still features Quinn and the Co Down tones of Margaret Byrne.

You still hear plenty of Irish accents at the ground on match day and there is sufficient renewed interest in the likes of John O’Shea for new flights from Ireland to be talked about.

Short also has his Irish dimension, but this is a man who guards his privacy with Fort Knox rigour so not much is known about that. That applies in general, even how Short came to make so much money he can afford to spend €116 million of it on Sunderland. He is based in London and owns a castle in Scotland. He comes from Missouri, but we have been told little else bar what Quinn has had to say.

Quinn was generous about Drumaville this week and he is generous about Short, praising his “gravitas” and “intelligence”.

Wearside awaits to hear what Short has to say for himself, his motivation in owning the club and his ambitions for it. But the wait may be a long one for there is no plan for him to open up and be the chairman the way Quinn was chairman. An immediate feeling was that this would isolate manager Steve Bruce but Quinn was keen to scotch that and it should be remembered Short was in control when Bruce was appointed 2½ years ago and when Bruce’s contract was extended in February.

That’s Quinn being the loyal Sunderland man. He will always be that whether he is in the chair or not. Tomorrow he is off to Korea for his first trip in his new role trying to sell the club abroad. Short has serious banking interests there. Sunderland’s new era begins.

Arsenal need to see some light at end of tunnel

ELLIS Short’s first game as Sunderland chairman will be at Niall Quinn’s first club, Arsenal, tomorrow week.

It is 15th in the Premier League hosting 16th and few expected it to be that way at the start of the season.

The international break means that a fortnight will have passed since Arsenal’s previous game, the 2-1 defeat to Tottenham, but it would only take a sound Sunderland opening for that memory to come racing back to a stadium divided over what Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal hierarchy are doing.

On paper it looks a difficult place for Steve Bruce to begin his new chairman relationship, but Arsenal continue to demonstrate they are not what they were.

In a less regarded corner of English football, Plymouth Argyle today host Accrington Stanley. Plymouth, a Championship club, two seasons ago, are now 92nd in the four divisions and continue to stare at liquidation.

There was some good news yesterday in the formation of a company called Green Pilgrim, which is apparently set to buy the club, but tired supporters have heard this before.

They need action as well as victory over Accrington, who left the league in 1962. It took them 44 years to get back.