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The man’s a miracle!

Jun 28 2009 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

HAS anyone checked if Niall Quinn can walk on water?

Miraculous deeds are surely not beyond a man who can achieve the verbal feat of squeezing understatement and overstatement into the same sentence.

Speaking at the launch of Sunderland’s bid to host World Cup matches in 2018, the Black Cats chairman talked of how Newcastle United are pursuing the same goal.

“We’re being proactive at the moment, but Newcastle are doing their own thing behind the scenes,” Quinn assured us.

With diplomacy skills like those, he could be Ireland’s man in Tehran.

For, in a week when it was confirmed that Newcastle’s cowardy custards will play in, er, cowardy custard next season, it took a brave man to predict what type of football will be hosted at St James’s Park the season after next, let alone in 2018.

And it was equally difficult to imagine exactly who at United would be doing precisely what as regards the vague prospect of a tournament 10 years’ distant.

That’s what with their struggle to open doors to Alan Shearer right now, never mind Brazil, Argentina or Spain.

Clearly, no such doubts exist at Sunderland, whose bold statement of World Cup intent hinted at a level of ambition they have lacked for too long.

If hints begat actions in the transfer market this summer, the gap between Tyne and Wear will appear ever wider.

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