‘I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to take every bit of this in’
For this generation, Lille 2016 matched Stuttgart 88 and Giants Stadium 94, even if – like Stephen Quinn – the were only briefly involved, writes Daniel McDonnell
LAST MONTH, Stephen Quinn’s wife Vanessa was tasked with setting a ‘What Happened Next’ picture round for a Zoom quiz contested by her husband and a group of his close friends from his playing days with Ireland and Hull.
One of her stills gave certain participants an unfair advantage. Robbie Brady was never going to get it wrong. The snapshot was from Lille on June 22, 2016, the date of Ireland’s Euros victory over Italy, with the virtual crowd letting out a cheer when the answer was revealed and the clip played through to the header he will forever be associated with.
For Quinn, it’s a special moment too. He confesses down the phone that merely talking about the events of that night make the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
He had his own little role in the aftermath.
In the throes of celebration, the flame-haired midfielder was summoned from the bench by Martin O’Neill and instructed to get ready.
He came on with just a minute of normal play and stoppage time remaining, the only action he saw in France, thus meaning his game-time matches up with a Lee Carsley cameo in 2002 as the shortest Irish contribution to a major tournament.
There are regrets, in the sense that he felt in the right place of his career to make a bigger impact in the competition. But the experience of being present on the pitch at the final whistle allowed Quinn to bank priceless memories that he cherishes.
“Just going over to that sea of green at the end,” he enthuses. “The minute you started talking about it, I can feel that excitement in my body again now. It’s just a wave of emotion.
“The fans were incredible. My family was there. Any time I look at the pictures, it brings it back. It just makes me feel so proud.”
Chatting
During the lockdown, the 34-year-old was chatting with his friend Gary Dicker, the Kilmarnock midfielder, and they agreed the downtime had given them the first real chance of their long careers to actually reflect on what they’ve achieved.
It’s understandable that Quinn’s mind harks back to that summer.
There’s a variety of memories; he describes the team bus weaving through traffic en route to a stadium and noticing out the window that Damien Duff, a player he’d watched from afar in his youth, was in the throngs of fans walking to watch the game as a supporter.
He details the surreal post-match Lille experience of getting called for the drug test and missing out on the dressing-room pandemonium. When he returned, he found just two people remaining, with the debris from the celebrations visible.
“It was Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane,” he recalls. “They looked drained. Emotionally exhausted and yet ecstatic at the same time. I actually felt a bit weird being there with them, with none of the other lads around. It’s a different type of conversation.”
Within a week, they were all back home. The showdown with the hosts in the last 16 was a near miss, and that was that.
Sometimes, cabin fever can take hold after a spell away but Quinn would happily have spent another month with that squad. Aside from a blip against Belgium, they had reached a good level in the finals. The players were united and pulling in the right direction.
“I didn’t want it to end,” he says. “There was proper solid lads in the team. They could work hard, but they could have the craic off the pitch. In my career, I’ve been in dressing-rooms where there’s been awful vibes so it’s rare to be in a group where so many lads are on the same wavelength with each other.
“I was bursting on the bench when Robbie scored, especially because I know him so well and I’m close to him. I’m so delighted I was involved in that experience with those lads.”
In his reflections, there’s a certain poignancy. The clock was ticking on Quinn’s Irish involvement; he just didn’t know it yet.
That Euros campaign was effectively his international career, so it lives untainted in his memory.
His first call was in 2007, when he was brought to San Marino by Steve Staunton, didn’t kick a ball and disappeared off the scene for six years before returning in the tail end of the Trapattoni years.
O’Neill’s first meaningful match was the September 2014 Euros qualifier in Tbilisi where Quinn, a Premier League player with Hull, made his competitive debut and he was in the frame from there all the way through to the tournament by which stage he was at Reading.
Two-and-a-half months after the French odyssey concluded, he earned his 18th cap as an impactful substitute in the opening World Cup qualifier in Serbia,
He wouldn’t get the chance to pick up number 19. “I got a knee injury that shafted me,” he says, bluntly.
The struggle went from bad to worse and he unofficially retired in 2018 following a hellish final season with Reading where he barely kicked a ball.
But he recharged his batteries as a free agent in Sheffield (he left St Pat’s for Sheffield United as a teenager and is at home there now) and worked with a physio that led to a productive meeting with a surgeon and then an instruction to his agent to contact Burton Albion and see if they would let him train.
Offer
That led to a contract offer from Nigel Clough and Quinn has undergone a revival at League One level which has convinced him there’s more years left in the legs. Yet he’s realistic enough to admit that it’s a distance away from the company he used to keep,
Covid-19 has created deep uncertainty in the lower leagues and Clough duly stepped aside to allow captain Jake Buxton take the reins as player-boss.
The out-of-contract Quinn has a deal on the table that might offer some coaching responsibility and he’s strongly considering signing up, although he would have no fears of another crack at the Championship if an approach came.
If it transpires that his best playing days are behind him, Quinn will deal with that.
He’s started to think about his next chapter, and can say with absolute sincerity that the events of recent months have given him a new perspective on life.
That’s because Vanessa is a nurse and was working shifts on the front line in a Covid-19 ward while he minded the three kids.
He has spoken openly about the stress of wondering if she was safe and the good news is that her hospital appears to be over the worst of it.
“They had three wards open for the Covid. Two are closed now and one is quiet, so they are getting a hold of it,” he says.
“She has been thundering through it, like she does, without wanting to be clapped or get pats on the back. It’s almost an embarrassment to her but I’m so glad that the nurses and the front-line staff are getting the respect and the recognition they deserve.
“It was worrying, I can’t lie. She was getting tested every week, and she kept coming back clear, but I was still reading up on all the bad news... she just kept reassuring me.”
Her profession has ensured he’s never lost touch with the real world, but the imprint of his upbringing was always going to keep the Cherry Orchard product grounded. His parents Alice and John raised a family of 15 children in Clondalkin. Nine boys, six girls.
Quinn marvelled at their work ethic, with his Dad earning cash on the building sites and as a painter and decorator to provide for his clan and ensure they didn’t want for anything, with the budding footballers shuttled to all of their games with talent clearly running through the family. Alan and Stephen both played for Ireland. Their brother Pat’s son Ben is causing a stir and has just signed for Celtic, with Stephen imparting words of advice.
The deep sadness is that Alice and
John had both passed away by the time Stephen represented his country, and he freely admits to entering a dark place in his early twenties as he tried to come to terms with it.
On reflection, he reckons that his mental health was suffering but he never really sought any kind of outside assistance. Through that wilderness, he endeavoured to find strength by educating himself.
“I was going down the wrong road attitude-wise,” says Quinn. “I’d lost my parents. I was struggling. And I was trying to blame everyone else for my mistakes. So I started to read and decided to try and help myself.
Helped
“I wasn’t very well educated when I was younger, I’d left school after my Junior Cert but I saw Chris Hoy, the Olympic cyclist, speaking in the paper one day about Steve Peters (the sports psychiatrist who had a big role at Liverpool in the Brendan Rodgers days) and how he’d helped him.
“I know Ronnie O’Sullivan was mad into him too. So I read his book, ‘The Chimp Paradox’, which is about mind management and the power of now and it really helped me.”
Quinn became an avid reader, and is willing to explore new avenues. For all that he intends to keep playing and also has coaching ambitions that have been encouraged by his friend Paul Osam, the Ireland U-16 manager, he’s also devouring information about business and has started to dabble in property.
Paul McShane is a close pal and they’re both in the same boat as one-time Ireland internationals and top-flight players that have sampled another side of the profession in the English third tier – McShane is at Rochdale. In recent weeks, they’ve talked a lot about their future plans in their virtual discussions.
“I get that people think footballers
are in a bubble,” Quinn continues. “I get why people think they are flash and arrogant but not a lot of them are like that, especially down in the lower leagues. Some of them might come across that way, but there’s so many that are still down to earth with real problems. They’ve got bills to pay. You’ve got to be mentally resilient and I’ve been trying to tell the young lads at Burton about that.”
He does have uplifting stories to share with the aspiring pros. As a child growing up in Bawnogue, he would scribble down his ambitions. The top two? “To play at Wembley, and to play for my country.”
Scoring for Hull in the 2014 FA Cup final against Arsenal ticked one box. Travelling with Ireland to a major finals was the next level. If anything, the challenges he’s encountered since then have almost elevated those memories.
“Our careers go so quick, you barely get a chance to take anything in,” he muses.
“But that was the pinnacle, to play for your country, and to represent them in a tournament. That was the ultimate goal. It was everything.
“Football is a strange career, because it’s possible you can live your dreams, everything you’ve always wanted.
“But I always heard people say that there are real low points for lads when they retire and I understand why now. You’re still very young but you’re trying to find something to replace the irreplaceable.”
France will always be a happy reference point because of the deeper meaning of what he overcame to get there.
“I was 30, I was at a good age to appreciate it,” he asserts. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘I’ve got to take every little drop of this in’ and I made sure I did that.”
Memories from just a few short minutes are capable of lasting a lifetime.