When Sunderland host Arsenal at the Stadium of Light this teatime, Quinn will be an interested observer. And while he meant have spent seven years with Arsenal, progressing from the club’s youth team to make 93 senior appearances for the Gunners, he will be cheering for the home team in red-and-white.
Quinn had already achieved considerable success with both Arsenal and Manchester City when he joined Sunderland in the summer of 1996 for a then club-record fee of £1.3m.
His first season was not a successful one – he spent six months on the sidelines with a serious knee injury – but from the moment he returned to action, he rapidly set about establishing himself as a fans’ favourite.
The statistics are impressive enough – he scored 67 goals in 218 Sunderland appearances – but they only part of the story of why he was so popular.
Playing in a swashbuckling Peter Reid that swept all before them as they won the First Division title in the 1998-99 season, with Quinn scoring 21 goals in the title-winning campaign, the Irishman got what it meant to be a Sunderland player.
While some players bridled at the geographical isolation of the North-East club, or shied away from the passionate glare of the fans and constant demands for wholehearted commitment, Quinn embraced the responsibility and privilege that went with playing for Sunderland.
“When I came up here I didn’t understand the enormity of what it meant to the people,” he said. “I bought into that because I had a difficult start and I wanted it even more once I started to get myself fit.
“When I cracked it and got the people to believe in me, I went on a journey with the fans, we brought the club into the new era with the Stadium of Light and we filled it out.
“Why did I enjoy my time at Sunderland more than I did at Arsenal and Manchester City? I think it was a sense of achievement, not with winning trophies but with making the club big and being part of the group that did that, because coming from Roker Park might have been difficult had we not kicked on.
“I suppose it was more precious to me because I was coming to the end of my career and I felt the passion. The fans would never ditch their local club because you don’t see other jerseys in Sunderland. You just see Sunderland jerseys and I bought into that.
“There is something so tangible there in the peoples’ blood and the peoples’ make-up that makes you want to come back for more. There is that loyalty and that drives the whole being of the club.”
Quinn scored Sunderland’ first goal at the Stadium of Light and struck up a hugely-successful partnership with Kevin Phillips. The archetypal ‘little and large duo’, the pair scored a combined 194 goals in all competitions between the 1997-98 season and the 2002-03 campaigns.
Aerially superb, but also much better with his feet than he often got credit for, Quinn delivered some magical moments in red-and-white. The derby goal in the torrential rain at St James’ was perhaps his most cherished.
His final Sunderland appearance came in October 2002, but that would not be the end of his relationship with the club. Almost four years later, in the summer of 2006, Quinn fronted the Drumaville consortium of Irish businessmen that bought Sunderland from Sir Bob Murray.
Quinn was installed as chairman when the takeover was complete and after a brief unsuccessful spell as manager – he lost four consecutive league games and also presided over a disastrous League Cup defeat to Bury – he produced a masterstroke, persuading Roy Keane to begin his managerial career on Wearside.
“Looking back on my relationship with him, and particularly his time at Sunderland, I say this - he didn't just change the culture in our dressing room, he changed the culture in the city of Sunderland,” said Quinn. “That's how big a job he did, and that's why I'll always say the man is box office. Always was and always will be.
"I just remember so fondly how he turned the dressing room inside out, and how he got a winning mentality back into a dressing room that had just come off a season where they had the worst points total ever in the history of the Premier League.”
Keane won the Championship title in his first season in charge and kept Sunderland in the top-flight in his second. Quinn remained as chairman for just over five years, but a downturn in the Irish economy meant the consortium he had put together was no longer able to financially support the running of the club.
He needed a buyer, and Quinn’s final act in charge of Sunderland was to identify and court Ellis Short, and persuade the American to take over at the Stadium of Light.
He has made frequent return visits to the stadium, where he remains the only person to have been a player, manager and chairman of Sunderland. Three roles. But only one Niall Quinn.