Micky Quinn - Club Career

Club Career

Quinn began his career as an apprentice with Derby County signing for the East Midlands club upon leaving school in 1978. However, he only lasted four months at the Baseball Ground, and returned to his Merseyside home due to homesickness. Eager though to turn professional, Quinn joined Wigan Athletic in September 1979.

After helping Wigan gain promotion to the Third Division in 1982, manager Larry Lloyd considered Quinn too inexperienced for the higher level of league football, and was given a free transfer to Stockport County, where he did establish himself as a regular goalscorer. Now having proven his worth, he caught the eye of Joe Royle at Second Division Oldham Athletic, and joined the club for £53,000 in January 1984.

Quinn joined Portsmouth just shy of transfer deadline day in March 1986 - Alan Ball paying £150,000 for Quinn's services in an attempt to push for promotion to the First Division, but just missed automatic promotion by a whisker. In April 1986, he was found guilty of drink-driving and received a £100 fine as well as a one-year driving ban. He breached the driving ban twice later that year, and in January 1987 was sentenced to 21 days in prison, but was freed after serving 14 days.

Despite this, he was Portsmouth's top goalscorer with 24 goals in all competitions as they finished Second Division runners-up and reclaimed the First Division place that they had last held in the late 1950s. However, Portsmouth were relegated back to the Second Division after just one season. Quinn stayed at Fratton Park for the 1988–89 season and scored 20 league goals, but Portsmouth finished 20th in the league and their good early season form was perhaps all that saved them from a second successive relegation. Halfway through the season, manager Alan Ball had left to be succeeded by John Gregory, and this transition was largely blamed for Portsmouth's slump in form. Gregory did appoint Quinn as the new first team captain and when his contract expired at the end of the season, he was offered a new deal but rejected the offer and put in a transfer request.

Newcastle United manager Jim Smith paid £680,000 for Quinn in July 1989, just after their relegation to the Second Division. Portsmouth manager John Gregory had demanded £1.5million for Quinn, but Smith had offered just £250,000 and the fee was set by a tribunal. Other clubs interested in signing Quinn at the time included Watford and Manchester City.

He scored four goals on his debut in a 5–2 home win over Leeds United on 19 August and finished as the Football League's top goalscorer in 1989–90 with 34 league goals. He managed 39 in all competitions. Newcastle were beaten to the automatic promotion places by Leeds and Sheffield United, and their promotion hopes were ended when they lost to Sunderland in the playoffs. He scored 20 goals for them the following season, but the club's league form slumped and they finished 10th. Before the season ended, Quinn and his team-mates had a new manager after Jim Smith resigned to be succeeded by Ossie Ardiles.

Quinn was ruled out of action for three months when in October 1991 he suffered a knee injury, and managed just seven goals in 22 games. 1991–92 was arguably the worst season in Newcastle United's history as they only narrowly avoided relegation to the third tier of the English league. Ardiles was sacked on 5 February 1992 to be succeeded by Kevin Keegan, but Quinn fell out with Keegan soon afterwards over newspaper speculation that Quinn had condemned the set-up as a "shambles". When the 1992–93 season began, Quinn was no longer a first choice player in the team and on 20 November 1992 he was sold to Coventry City. Bobby Gould paying for £250,000 Quinn, after an undisclosed bid from Aston Villa was rejected.

During his first six months at Highfield Road, Quinn scored 17 Premier League goals – 10 of them in his first 6 games. Scoring in his first four games makes him one of only six players to perform this feat., of which he scored a brace against each of Crystal Palace, Liverpool and Aston Villa. His performances were not enough to bring Coventry City beyond 15th place in the final table (although they had occupied fourth place at one stage), but they improved to 11th place the following season with Quinn scoring eight league goals, starting the 1993–94 season with a hat-trick against Arsenal in a 3–0 away win.

Quinn had been seriously considered for inclusion into the England squad in early 1993, at a time when Alan Shearer and David Platt were both unavailable due to injuries, but the international call-up from Graham Taylor never materialised. However, he was dropped from the team at the end of August after falling out with manager Phil Neal following his dismissal against Blackburn Rovers in the third game of the season, and within two weeks he was pushed further down the pecking order by the arrival of £2 million striker Dion Dublin from Manchester United.

He had unproductive loan spells with Plymouth Argyle (in November 1994), and Watford (in March 1995) before new manager Ron Atkinson gave him a free transfer on 1 May 1995. On leaving Coventry, Quinn had a brief spell playing in Greece with PAOK Thessaloniki FC. Around this time, his younger brother died in his mid-twenties, and his mother died of cancer.