I banged them in for Coventry... I forgot I’d put £100 on them to go down!
MICK QUINN ON SCORING, GAMBLING, FIGHTING — AND NOW TRAINING HORSES
MICK QUINN is talking records. ‘ Calendar year? What the f*** is that all about?’
We are walking through the Newmarket stables where the former striker trains his racehorses. First, though, conversation turns to the penalty box, not the horse box.
In season 1989-90, Quinn scored 39 goals in all competitions for Newcastle United, more than any player that year in a European professional league.
He is also the only man to score in his first six Premier League matches, netting 10 times during that run for Coventry City in 1992.
‘Harry Kane never did that, did he?’ laughs Quinn, who won three Golden Boots during his 17-year career. ‘But Harry doesn’t need all these far-fetched records — most goals in a calendar year! It’s a new one every week.
‘You get your reward by scoring the next goal and he has that hunger. Too many strikers today are happy with 10 a season. If I didn’t score 20 I couldn’t sleep all summer. I’d come back angry.’
Outside the penalty area, the rotund Quinn played with the urgency of a second-class stamp; inside it he was as sharp as the thoroughbreds around which his life now exists.
‘I was that selfish I couldn’t be arsed with holding the ball up and bringing others in,’ he says. ‘Just get in the box… sometimes I’d score without even knowing.’
Would Mick Quinn make it in today’s game? ‘Yes,’ he shoots back. ‘That instinct, it’s either in you or it isn’t. I’d be like Jermain Defoe, only not as mobile!’
Liverpool-born Quinn scored 231 League goals, one more than his idol, Kenny Dalglish. ‘Wow, that’s phenomenal, I didn’t know that,’ he says. ‘I worshipped Kenny.’
That brings us on to another of Quinn’s scoring records, achieved as a 20-year-old while playing for Stockport County. Except, the goals were not for Stockport. ‘I had a mate at Liverpool University,’ he begins. ‘They played in the intramural second division. In the first division you got showers, a bus, better pitches.
‘So I signed as Kevin Dalglish — the names of my two heroes (Keegan being the other).
‘The football was crap — a load of home economics students called Nigel and Cedric. I scored about 50 goals in five games and word spread, “Who is this lad?” I told people I studied at home… I got them promoted and jacked it in before I got rumbled.’
Quinn, now 55, has been up since 6.30am. He helps muck out the stables, feed the horses, oversees exercise on the gallops, arranges race entries and drives the trailer to the racecourse, whether that’s Newmarket or Newcastle.
‘If I start training elephants then I’ll get my jockey’s licence as well!’ he jokes.
Wife Karen rides out every morning and just a few bales of hay separate the family home from the barn in which around 15 horses are housed. His daughter returns from school and Quinn takes us for a tour of Newmarket’s more famous stables — John Gosden, Luca Cumani, the late Henry Cecil. ‘I’m small scale compared to these guys,’ says the father of four as we drive around Flat racing’s headquarters.
‘We haven’t got champions or hundreds of horses, but when it all comes together there’s no buzz like it, better than scoring a goal.’
That is some statement. So what is the ambition? ‘To be able to challenge the bigger trainers, get some Group runners,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a good owner on board (Kenny Bruce, founder of estate agents Purplebricks) and we’ve got some nice horses.
‘In the past I’ve had owners such as Didi Hamann and Duncan Ferguson — but his horse was injured more than him!’
The television in Quinn’s living room shows today’s racing. All around the screen, though, are memories from his playing days.
HIS happiest spell, he says, was at Newcastle, the club he joined from Portsmouth for £680,000 in 1989. Not that he foresaw such a good time when he arrived.
‘I signed at St James’ Park and went into the city centre,’ he says. ‘I saw the Jackie Milburn statue and thought, “Score enough goals and you get one of these, I hope they have enough bronze for me!”
‘Then along came the Supporters for Change on a protest march singing “Sack the board”. I got closer and noticed a placard — “Who the f*** is Mick Quinn?”’
Four goals on his debut in a 5-2 victory over Leeds United answered that question. ‘Until you play for Newcastle, you don’t realise what it’s like,’ he adds. ‘All my career I wanted to be appreciated for scoring goals.
‘That day, with those fans, with the No 9 on my back… I’d never felt anything like it.’
The adulation did not end there. ‘My dad and uncles were up and we were still drinking in the hotel bar at 2am,’ he says. ‘The toilets were two floors down. I waited at the lift but ended up p****** in the plant pot. The manager tapped me on the shoulder, “Micky, score four next week and you can use the plant pot in the bar!”’
Quinn was the talk of the Toon and, when Miss World made a promotional visit, he danced with her on the River Tyne’s floating nightclub Tuxedo Royale.
But his relationship with new manager Kevin Keegan hit troubled waters in 1992. Quinn scored twice in a 3-1 win over Portsmouth and, after a promise from chairman Sir John Hall, there were cases of champagne waiting for him in the dressing room.
‘All Kevin could say was, “I hope you’re going to share that?”’ says Quinn. ‘I said, “No, I’m going to drink the lot myself!” I was dropped for the next game. I knew he’d already made his mind up on me. I went to his office, “Gaffer, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going…”
‘He said, “No, you’re going”. That was it, literally sent to Coventry.’
Quinn became a cult hero with the Sky Blues — earning the nickname ‘Sumo’ — and he scored the last hat-trick by an opposition player at Arsenal’s Highbury stadium. But he had an uneasy feeling on the journey to the Midlands in November 1992.
He recalls: ‘ I was thinking, “Coventry, Coventry… why does that ring a bell?” I’d forgotten that in the summer I’d had a £100 bet on them to go down.
‘I get there and (manager) Bobby Gould is asking me to score the goals to keep them in the Premier League, which I did. Every time I got the ball I just saw Kevin’s face and lashed it in.’
If Quinn has reservations about Keegan, the same cannot be said of Alan Ball, the man who took him to Portsmouth in 1985.
‘That team made Wimbledon look soft,’ he says. ‘We had a North-South divide at first. Bally called the Southerners “The Wine Bar Crew”. He got rid of them and brought in lads who liked a pint.
‘ You had to have a criminal record to play in our team… I got three weeks’ jail when I was caught driving already disqualified. But we could play. We were fighting every day in training but, on the pitch, we had each other’s backs.’
So what did happen when Pompey met Wimbledon? ‘ We played Millwall at home on the
I scored 50 in five games for the university team. I told people I studied mostly at home!
Could I make it in the game today? I’d be like Jermain Defoe...only not as mobile
Tuesday and John Fashanu elbowed Kevin Dillon, who was carried off,’ recalls Quinn of March 1986. ‘Fash signed for Wimbledon that week and we had them on the Saturday. For 48 hours the lads were chalking their elbows and filing their studs.
‘Within 10 seconds Mick Kennedy went in with a two-footer on Fash, no messing. It was a 1-1 draw and, as we came off, I saw our defender Billy Gilbert go down in the tunnel. Fash was behind him.
‘I thought, “He’s f****** hit him”, so I jumped on Fash’s back and gave him a dig. A 22-man brawl broke out and police got involved.
‘We got back to the changing-rooms and Bally was fuming, “Who f****** started that?” I said, “Gaffer, it was me, Fash hit Billy so I stuck stu up for my team-mate”. Billy Bill was sitting there, he looked look at me and said, “What you on about? I slipped on the bloody stairs coming off the pitch”. Two weeks’ wages I was fined!’
Quinn — who earned £1,500 a week at his peak — left football penniless; gambling, drinking and relationship break- ups having drained all the reserves.
Today, his income is supported by a weekly slot co- hosting talkSPORT’s breakfast show. ‘I love it,’ he says, ‘I have the same conversation with the lads down the pub as I do on the radio.’
Quinn’s DJ-ing career actually began when he was a teenager, hiring a mobile disco and making a few quid around the doors on Merseyside.
In fact, he has always had an eye for a quick profit, such as in 2006 when the producers of reality TV show Celebrity Fit Club got in touch.
‘I was 11/2 to win (lose the most weight in three months) and my bookmaker said I could have £300 on,’ he says.
‘That was December 4 and the show started January 10. I went mad at Christmas and hit 19st, I wasn’t messing about. I lost 15lb in one week, a new record. Come the end I’d lost 4st 8lb and was crowned Mr Fit Club!’
And there we have another record. Quinn has more than he realises. Before leaving, he shows us a two-year-old filly for whom he has very high hopes.
Perhaps his days of breaking records aren’t over just yet.