He remembers it all clearly and it leaves smile after smile across his memory. The flight to Heathrow, the night at uncle Matty's and auntie Eilish's near Twickenham. The 6.30 a.m. start and the silver tube journey across London. Getting out at Highbury station and walking up the hill to the ground. The hop up the steps and into the marble. Apprentices in at eight!

No ceremony, apart from loading the skips for the trip to the training ground. There he gasped at the sight of Pat Jennings. And all those big cars. Welcome to The Arsenal. Then the reverse in the afternoon, stopping off at the little shop opposite the tube for a Mars Bar and a can of Coke. It was the end of September 1983. Liverpool were the champions, with Watford second, Manchester United held the FA Cup having beaten Brighton, and Niall Quinn was fresh from Dublin having lost an All-Ireland minor hurling final to Galway. "I was hopeless," Quinn said of his Croke Park appearance. But, in London, Quinn was full of hope. He was 17 in his first week at Arsenal and his birthday present from the club was a five-a-side with the first team. David O'Leary, Brian Talbot and that year's model, Charlie Nicholas.

Seventeen years on and the hope within Quinn remains strong. He knows much more now, of course, has been hurt enough to consider retirement and has seen plenty of football's hidden world. But Quinn has retained his optimism throughout and admits to still daydreaming of glory like the 16-year-old he was once.

A new contract with Sunderland, one that will keep him playing past his 37th birthday, and one, just as significantly, that takes him into the economic bracket of his Premiership peers, has been signed.

Then there was Frank Stapleton's goals record, equalled in America in June. It has been a good summer in the Quinn household in Tony Blair's constituency of Sedgefield.

And today, a new Premiership season dawns. As the computer would have it, Sunderland entertain Arsenal. On Wednesday Sunderland travel to Manchester City. Quinn's clubs one and two.

When he walked across Sunderland's training ground in the week with his mate Steve Bould (37), twenty of his younger colleagues burst into a chorus of "Dad's Army", but he is experiencing no ageism from within. "Intent on achieveing a lot each day," was the self-assessment of Niall Quinn 2000. Made Sunderland club captain by manager Peter Reid last season, Quinn now has extra tasks each day. Aside from formal duties, at training this mainly involves dealing with Sunderland's young pros.

Quinn was keen to point out that it is coaxing rather than coaching. "I'd never take a group session and I have no intention of ever taking a group session," he said this week. "I get a real kick out of someone young just listening. I take great pride in Robbie Keane and what he's doing.

"Obviously others did much more than me but I feel thrilled to have even played a tiny part in his development. Peter Reid has encouraged me to take on extra responsibility and watching someone like Robbie or Kevin Phillips - a novice three years ago, coming here with intimidation written all over him - that's a great thrill."

Mick McCarthy has posed the same question at international level. "Before games now Mick will have a chat with me. I'm not just there to eat, sleep and play football. I'm not saying that I want to be the Irish manager in five years or anything, but it's great to be trusted to have a bit of a leadership role."

Management, though, is a step too far. "I never lose sense of reality. When you take that step, you have to be 100 per cent for it. I've no intention of ever being 100 per cent for it." Besides, the new contract means the next three years are assured.

That leaves Quinn free to concentrate on his football, and the additional responsibility "Has made training more exciting for me than ever". Seventeen sweaty pre-seasons in, that could sound like a platitude coming from another tongue.

But Quinn has no reason to bluff, in fact, with an end to Stapleton's record just one strike away, and with an Irish cap record also on the horizon, he is looking eagerly at the Republic's World Cup qualifiers that begin in Amsterdam a fortnight today.

For one very good reason Quinn is confident about the qualifiers, despite the worrying fact that first up are Holland and then Portugal - the reason is Quinn did not watch a single match from Euro 2000 the whole way through. "If I was asked to play a game of golf or watch England v Germany, I went and played golf," he said.

"It wasn't because I was sulking or moaning because we didn't get there. I'm sure Mick wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about Macedonia - he's only human - but to me it's past, it's lost ground and there just wasn't really much value in me watching Euro 2000.

"I looked at it with interest rather than anger but I think I watched more of the hurling this summer. It was better anyway. "So I'm glad really. If I was watching it and coming away thinking: `Portugal, brilliant, Holland, brilliant,' then I'd be worried about the games coming up. But I'm not, I'm excited. I'm not living in a false world, but we have got to go there thinking we've got a chance. We must have our attitude right.

"Now I have something new to look forward to. I can switch off like that, if I was a worrier I would have jacked it in after the Macedonia game."

Quinn's positive thinking extends to the depression that gripped after that late, late Macedonian equaliser last October. He invoked the example of Sunderland after their traumatic Wembley play-off defeat to Charlton three seasons ago.

"I can honestly say we're a better team to have missed out and maybe the Ireland team can go on to better things. I have a recurring dream that we make this World Cup, I'm sure someone is writing a script. I have to have that belief, that's why Macedonia, and Turkey, mean nothing to me now."

What does mean a lot to Quinn - aside from hurling - are the agents he considers to be "in control of the game. Now schoolboys have agents, it's incredible. If you're inside football you can see agents rule it. They can engineer anything they want."

Another issue that intrigues and concerns Quinn, and a rather more delicate subject, is the thought of a united Ireland football team. Quinn thinks it as distant a prospect as soccer at Croke Park. "It would have been a great gesture, one match to show the GAA is not bigoted. "I can't help the odd time thinking how good we'd be. Nobody should forget that. It's right that at this time other matters have priority, but I know for a fact that, as a team, we'd be unbeatable on these shores. Who would come and win in Dublin or Belfast?"

Fighting talk. It seems Niall Quinn 2000 is as ready for a new challenge as the boy who rode the tube in 1983.