Squad Profiles - Legends of the Game

FEW players in the current Northern Ireland set-up can match the passion and devotion to the cause of James Quinn.

Just one look at his reaction when he realised that the yellow card picked up against Austria would mean sitting out the England game would surely have challenged the hardest of hearts.

Our biggest game for a generation and Quinn knew he wouldn't be there. The Green and White Army cried with him.

For a long time the big man was the forgotten man of Northern Irish football. A red card picked up against Greece during the last qualifiers saw him cast aside for almost a year until Lawrie Sanchez came calling although a spell in Dutch football probably didn't help his cause.

He repayed Lawrie's faith with a goal against Serbia & Montenegro in his first game back and since then has been more or less a constant fixture in the panel, the perfect companion up front for David Healy, diminutive in comparison.

A no-nonsense approach to the game doesn't help endear him to the men in black, as evidenced by a succession of bookings but every team needs someone like him - and we love him for it.

Quinn returned to the English game at the beginning of 2005 after over two years in the Dutch Ervedise with Willem II.

After a spell with Sheffield Wednesday, he joined Peterborough and in the summer of 2006 he joined Northampton Town.

Quinn won his 50th cap for Northern Ireland in the Euro 2008 qualifying game against Latvia last October.