Quinn hails Kendall influence in City career

Niall Quinn has hailed the influence on his career of former boss Howard Kendall and says his man-management skills set him apart when he was manager at City.

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Kendall signed Quinn for the Blues in March 1990 with the talismanic striker scoring on his debut and going on to make 244 appearances and score 77 goals during seven seasons at Maine Road.

Quinn, who celebrates his 60th birthday today, remembers one incident in particular which summed up Kendall’s ability to boost squad morale as they made their move away from the lower reaches of the Premier League table in the closing stages of the 1989/90 season.

“I can remember Howard Kendall in particular from my time at City,” Quinn told the Official Man City Podcast.

“You’d play a game on a Saturday, he’d give you a Sunday off. On Monday, we played little games and he might say – have Tuesday off guys and Wednesday, but on Thursday, Friday, I really want you.

“And I can almost tell you one lovely story. He took over and we were in the bottom three. And there was nine games to go.

“We started to win a couple of games and then we lost. And I thought ‘Oh my god, we’ll see Howard now for what he is, he’s going to kill us’. And he just walked in the dressing room and went ‘Okay, everybody, have tomorrow off. Come in Monday…and nobody bring your car. Anybody who brings their car, you get fined two weeks wages.

“I was like ‘What’s going on?’ So we came in on the Monday, and we went downstairs to where the head tennis pitch was. We were all in our tracksuits.

“And he had a table tennis table there with two table tennis bats and a ball. And in each corner, it was lined up with crates of Budweiser.

“And you had to bounce the ball, tip it, run to the end, get your beer, go to the end of the queue, and have your half bottle of Budweiser drank by the time you played your next shot.

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“And everybody got three lives. And this went on for like an hour and a half.

“And when we all finished, we were all laughing and giggling. And then we went up to the dressing room and this old banger of a coach came and brought us to a restaurant in Didsbury – ‘Burns’ Fish Restaurant’, I’ll never forget it.

“We had our meal and had a few drinks, and then it got boisterous. And by the end, we’re dancing on the tables nearly at seven, eight o’clock.

“And he just stood up and I promise you we did this. He went ‘Okay everybody, I want you to go and have a couple of days with your family. Do it for them this week. Do whatever you do with your families tomorrow and Wednesday. I’ll see you Thursday. But when I see you, you’re doing it for me.’

“Just imagine playing for a man like that. It was unbelievable. The hair is going up my arm thinking about it right now.

“He made me a better player by just man management. He didn’t show me what to do with the ball. He didn’t tell me how to pull as a centre forward into the right areas. Didn’t do that.

“But he made me feel like I could do anything I wanted.”

Kendall led City to a 14th place finish in the end before looking to get City looking up again with the 1990/91 campaign on the horizon.

Quinn had played a starring role for the Republic of Ireland in Italia 90 and was looking forward to linking up with Kendall again but just four months into that second term, Kendall resigned to take up the vacant role at Everton.

Quinn, who went on to score 22 goals that season and help City to a fifth place finish under Peter Reid (pictured below), was gutted to see Kendall depart especially as it didn’t really work out for the Toffees legend on his return to Goodison Park.

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“Howard took over and he said ‘We’ll stay up. Don’t worry about that. And next year we’ll get better.’

“We won a good few games at the close of that season. The next year just happened for me, like I was a different player. I scored 22 goals that year, which was a highlight, I never repeated that again, but we had a lovely team.

“And then for some reason Howard decided he had to go back to Everton.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was away on international duty and the word had come through and I couldn’t believe it. The huge tie to Everton obviously made that happen. But it just didn’t work out. I think it was a bad move for him.”