Niall Quinn - evergreen striker (Allsport).

By Damian Spellman, PA Sport

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The label of hero is one which is all too often imposed on professional footballers.

Scorers of key goals, makers of vital saves and inspirational leaders find themselves thrust on to pedestals at regular intervals by the fans to whom their efforts mean so much.

But few within the game command as much genuine respect as a man who is almost embarrassed to be regarded as special by so many.

Veteran Republic of Ireland striker Niall Quinn is a footballer without an ego and one who freely admits he is living out his dreams.

The 35-year-old Sunderland hitman has won armies of fans with his ability on the pitch and his refreshing attitude to what he does for a living.

But what set him further aside from the crowd was his decision earlier this year to use his international benefit match to attempt to raise £1million for charity.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and FIFA president Sepp Blatter were among those moved to praise the Irishman for his generosity when his decision was announced, but his move simply served to confirm his status as one of the game's true gentlemen.

Quinn's reasons are the very same as those which have fuelled his career from the days since he burst into the big time as a teenager with Arsenal to his twilight years in football.

And they will underpin what seems likely to be his international swansong at this summer's World Cup finals.

"For 20 years of good times and the good life, I don't think it's much, really and truthfully, to put this back in and have one game," he said.

"The only way I can balance it up and see that I can come out with my conscience clear would be to have a hundred games like this and raise something like £100million.

"I've had a very privileged life. Football has given me fulfilment, not just financially, but the boyhood dream has been fulfilled - and it's still going on at 35 years of age.

"I feel the least I can do is put something back in."

Quinn may have hit the headlines most recently for the work he has put in off the pitch, but it is for what he has done on it that he will be remembered best, particularly in Ireland and on Wearside.

Having made his name as a youngster at Arsenal, he was forced to re-evaluate when he became surplus to requirements at Highbury and was transferred to Manchester City in March 1990.

It was there that future Sunderland boss Peter Reid first saw at close hand the character and ability which was to result in his £1.3million bid to take him to the north-east in August 1996, and the rest is history.

Injuries have played their part in his long career and the current season, despite specialised pilates sessions and extended periods of rest, has been something of a stop-start affair for Quinn.

But there is little doubt that he has played some of the best football of his career, first at Roker Park and then at the Stadium of Light, and it is that which has helped him to preserve his international career.

Quinn wrote himself into the Republic's record books when he beat Frank Stapleton's long-standing record of 20 goals for his country.

But he knows that his glorious career is drawing to a close, and faces some tough decisions once the dust has settled on another World Cup adventure.

"All along, I've promised Peter from the day I signed here - because I signed when nobody else wanted me - I told him that I wasn't going to become some sort of mercenary," he said.

"I'm going to give him everything I have, and when the time runs out, it runs out.

"Peter and I will probably sit down in the summer. We might not have to, everybody might know by the summer!

"But hopefully I'll give him something to think about. I could come back from the World Cup really buzzing."

The prospect of replacing the man who has inevitably, but nevertheless fittingly, become known as 'the Mighty Quinn', is one which has been on Reid's mind for some time.

"Everyone knows what I think about Niall," he said. "I wish I could find another one. That would do me.

"But they don't grow on trees do they, those type of players?"

The same question will soon also occupy the mind of Mick McCarthy, but both men will eventually have to face up to the fact that Quinn is simply irreplacable.

Sunderland and the Republic may well find strikers who will serve them proud in the years to come, but they will struggle to find any who will do it in the same style as Quinn.

The Dubliner's aerial ability is, of course, his major weapon, but he is much, much more than a target man.

Quinn is an all-round footballer who has made up for a lack of pace in his later years with an instinct for being in the right place at the right time, and being able to handle the ball on the ground as well as in the air.

His club partnership with Kevin Phillips has been the main reason for Sunderland's success in recent seasons, and it is no coincidence that the England striker has been less prolific when the link has been interrupted.

But more than that, he is a man who enjoys every single minute of his time on the pitch and gives his all for both club and country every time he pulls on either the red and white of Sunderland or the green of Ireland.

That is something that money just cannot buy, and exactly why he will have a major role to play for Ireland, both on the pitch and off it, in Japan and South Korea.