Eugene Quinn

I was born in Castlebar, County Mayo in September 1989, but since August 1992 home has been Crawley in West Sussex, 10 minutes away from the Broadfield Stadium, and the all-conquering Crawley Town. Soccer (/o\) is the second passion, admittedly behind Gaelic football, where I’m now the second generation awaiting a Mayo All-Ireland title, but since 1997 it’s been a pretty fervent second passion, ignited for some quite random reason by Alan Shearer’s half-hour hat-trick at St.James’ against Leicester to win the game in the last few seconds. Still never meant I ever supported Newcastle though, in fact there’s never been a real alleigance, I suppose when Mayo League play Crawley in the Champions’ League final I’ll have to make a decision then…

National football has always been the passion, with the highs, such as Jason McAteer’s goal to send the Dutchies out of the World Cup seven years ago and us into a play-off, and the inevitable lows (Cyprus, Macedonia, San Marino, Liechtenstein, oh I could go on…). The favourite player is Damien Duff, the favourite match is against the Dutch in Amsterdam in the first fixture of that 2002 campaign, and the favourite moment is probably the last-minute equaliser against the Spaniards at that World Cup. We had them….

Out of real-life football, I’m a shameless Football Manager addict with an interest in plenty of other sports (A St.Louis Blues fan for the Stateside readers, and you can stop laughing as well) who is slowly developing as a Darts player on the local scene. A loving set of parents pushing me into University studies, a set of friends who like myself can barely lump a football 30 yards up the field, but could tell you everything about what the professional player is doing wrong, and a non-existent girlfriend. Who wouldn’t want to be me, frankly?