He doesn't glide through the hotel in his stockinged feet anymore, sliding along with one leg of his tracksuit pants rolled up above his knee and with his woollyback wit being sprayed hither and tither. But people still grin when they see him and, even on the bad days, Jason McAteer treats the world with a lightness of touch and a pleasant grace which makes you think that there are still footballers who see themselves as life's special guests and are grateful for it.

It's a shock to realise that he's 30 and talking about coaching badges and fatherhood and that time long, long ago when himself and his two amigos went to America with big Jack and wound up eating chicken nuggets in Times Square on the bonnet of limo, found themselves nutmegging legendary Italians as they scampered crazylegged through the tournament. Ah, scenes from the last century.

They say it takes 15 games at international level before you find your feet. Los amigos did their acclimatising at the summit. Coming down was the difficulty. Coming down helped us realise that at core Jason McAteer isn't a jester. He's a survivor.

He came later to the big time than most and it's always been his secret that he's cleverer than he lets on, more passionate about Ireland and about his career than the jokes and the charming self-deprecation even hint at. When you watch a manager fixing together an Irish squad, you know he wants Jason McAteer to be there because he is the social glue in the set-up, because he has the experience and because he is a big-time performer.

His early days with the amigos were perhaps the ultimate in clique chic and unwittingly earned McAteer, Phil Babb and Gary Kelly an unwarranted amount of quiet resentment. Now, though, McAteer serves a different function within the team, key player instead of cocky arriviste, genial social secretary rather than pop idol.

His contribution has never been higher. You can chart the team's ups and downs these past 18 months but no peaks are higher or collectively more significant than McAteer's two goals, a year apart, against the Dutch.

So he's back. Back in the big time and back in demand with the press boys and what's good is that Jason is old school. He sees a thicket of journalists in the lobby and doesn't think to phone management and tell them they have a rodent problem.

Jason mingles. The favour of his times and his talk is dispensed easily. And he has a new job to talk about. Working the wings in the Stadium of Light. He has the happy demeanour of a released hostage.

"It took a long time. The whole deal was about a month unravelling. Blackburn gave me permission to go because they, well they wanted me out. The gaffer, Peter Reid, rung me up and I took to him straight off but it took about a month to get everything together. Ts to cross and Is to dot. My agent had a lot to sort out. Sunderland is a Plc so there were a lot of people to go through. It was a hard month. I thought things would fall through."

He'd gambled by putting all his aspirations in the one basket. There was interest from elsewhere, but he pursued Sunderland.

A club in Spain were on the blower for a while, Udinese (a connection there with Roy Hodgson) came looking and another Premiership club made solid inquiries. The interest from the other Premiership club hastened things up. Sunderland jumped. It was meant to be Jason McAteer thinks.

"Working there is great. Peter Reid is a breath of fresh air. It's a modern club but there's a lot about it that's old school. At Blackburn the last while, since Brian Kidd left really, it was the lowest I've been in football. I was lower than a snake's belly. It was difficult. I was dealing with a manager that I got on with outside of football and we did get on despite media thinking, but we didn't see eye to eye on everything."

What did you disagree on?

"Me being in the team."

Yeah?

"Me not playing. I felt I should be playing. He felt he was the manager and it was up to him. It was a short argument really."

Couldn't you prove yourself to him?

"Football is a game of opinions isn't it? I don't know what he was looking for, what I didn't have. You'd have to ask Graeme Souness. We never sat down. He just said I wasn't in his plans, that I didn't give him what he wanted."

It sounds like a scene from a bad marriage. So too does the cold war that followed.

At Blackburn, the 22 players in the first-team squad train separately from everyone else. When you drop through that crevice there's little chance of climbing back up. And it's the small things that go. Saturday becomes just another day. He found he didn't spend the week getting himself up for Saturday. And on Saturday he didn't even feel the need to get up. Saturdays were spent shopping at MFI or playing Dad along with the nine-to-five set at Chester zoo.

He couldn't even bring himself to tune into Radio Five to find how things were going at Ewood Park or elsewhere. He might bother teletext for the results after tea but no Match of the Day, thanks.

"And that isolates you more. You're not travelling with the team, so Monday mornings or Sundays you go in and the lads train separately and then, when everyone gets a bite to eat, the lads are talking about the game and the trip and you're not a part of it. You get to a state of mind. Not playing. Not bothered."

He plugged away in the reserves and made the effort in training but couldn't escape the thought that there was nobody watching, nobody interested. Scoring a hat-trick and balancing the ball on his nose like a circus seal wasn't going to bring him back to the attention of the manager. He knows because he did the equivalent against Holland.

"Yeah it was difficult to the point that I was coming away at international level with Ireland and proving in a game like the Holland match that I can do it. Then I go back to club level and I can't make the team for the Worthington Cup first round against Oldham. I was getting nowhere, not getting a sniff from other clubs. Finding it hard to go to work, hard to get motivated.

"Tried hard in training, tried hard in the reserves, but you realise eventually that your time is up and you just hope that somebody will come and take a chance. And that's what it is. Somebody has to take a chance."

Right at the end in Blackburn he got back into the squad. It was like a cruel tease. He played well against Everton and got bumped out of the squad the next day.

"I thought I found the squad rotation at Liverpool difficult. This was as bad again."

He's putting it all back together though. His career may indeed be coming full circle. A World Cup looming, Jason McAteer back playing with an old-style northern club. There are even hints that he might get a shot at playing where he likes best. Back in the day, back in his pomp at Bolton he was a perpetual motion machine in the centre of midfield.

Some of his best moments have come in the centre of the park. A finely crafted goal against Macedonia at home early in Mick McCarthy's reign stands out in the memory as a glimpse of what might have been.

"And I played against Croatia at central midfield a while ago and loved it. Yeah I miss it. Enjoyed my time central midfield but I went to Liverpool and I was just thrilled to be there and just be in the team and I started getting moved about a couple of positions. It was the same with Jack really. I became a right-sider. I never complained and I got stuck with it. Peter Reid has spoken to me about the possibility of me playing in the middle of the park. So if we're struggling he'll perhaps put me in there. I like that. I'm in a position now though where I'm happy to be in the routine of playing football again and I have a manager that believes in me."

Sunderland. First morning at the windswept Charlie Hurley training ground he felt a part of it. Reid is there with an illuminated welcome. There's Quinny and Kevin Kilbane, old friends, and there is an atmosphere that he has almost forgotten.

"Everyone trains together and works together. They work at being inclusive. And Peter Reid. He's different class. You know it's more difficult for some managers to pick 11 than it is for others. I think if Peter Reid could pick 50 for a Saturday he would, just not to be disappointing anyone. That's the kind of person he is. He tries to make it as easy as he can for players not involved.

"I can't say enough good things about the man. He's behind me, he gives me encouragement and he talks to me like an adult. That's something I've been missing."

The French influence took a lot of good things out of the English game in the past few years he thinks. Players are like lab rats now.

"Sunderland is like a breath of fresh air, just being managed in the way that I'm used to. Graeme, well it's difficult to be critical because I wasn't involved, if I had been playing week in week out, I wouldn't have been worrying about it. It is easier to describe Gerard Houllier and the way he runs the ship. Gerard was very into us going to hotels after a first-team home game. Lots of small things that made a change of culture."

Sunderland he finds is a modern club with old school thinking. A lot about it reminds him of Bolton. He's enjoying it and senses that his career might be on the threshold of a big ending. Next year's World Cup, if it is granted to him over the next few days, will be a different experience. For one, he has helped push the team to qualification, helped hugely. Last time around he was gathered into the squad in the spring-time of 1994.

Today it's Iran in the familiarity of Lansdowne. Monday morning it's a long flight into a new world. He's not the cap and bells guy anymore but for the long haul, the big adventure, he's one of the guys the team needs and one of those players who responds well when the need is greatest.

Another week in the life.

In Trigger we trust.