IT was an occasion inside the Riverview Suite with a sense of emotion. Presented in front of the media was a boyhood Sunderland supporter being paraded as the club's new manager - already safe in the knowledge he has the fans on his side.

But Martin O'Neill is not your typical Sunderland follower. He is a Northern Irishman, due to celebrate his 60th birthday in March, who has never played for the club, nor as he ever managed it before. In fact, up until playing professionally, he had never even been to Wearside.

Yet as he walked up through the tunnel, towards the technical area where he will now become part of the fixtures and fittings, he will have received a couple of immediate reminders of his youth.

Resting on the walls outside the dressing rooms hang two iconic pictures of Charlie Hurley: the Cork-born centre-half that went on to become Sunderland's player of the century when it went to vote in 1979 as part of centenary celebrations.

Many of O'Neill's Saturday afternoons during the late-50s and 60s were spent listening to the radio, as he tried to follow Sunderland's matches - along with his other love, Celtic - from the family home.

"I think it was because Charlie was Irish, maybe it was to do with the fact that they were the Bank of England club as well," said O'Neill, knowing all about the nickname afforded to the club in days of substantial investment.

Hurley, who turned 75 in October and now lives in Hertfordshire, made a point of contacting O'Neill before yesterday's press conference. "I've just spoken to him because he left - I was going to say it was a get well card - a good luck message," said O'Neill.

Prior to his brief chat with Sunderland's new manager, Hurley recalled how his career in the North-East got off to the worst possible start - something he hopes is not repeated this time around.

"You know something, after all these years of following Martin O'Neill's career, I didn't know I was his idol until the last few days," said Hurley. "It sounds like he was pretty keen to come up to Sunderland, which is something I wasn't too keen on when I had the chance.

"The manager at that time (September 1957), Alan Brown, God rest his soul, tortured me for days to sign. He just wouldn't give up. I was playing for Millwall, which was near to where we lived, and my parents didn't want me to go. There was bloody no way I was going up to live in Sunderland and leave Millwall when the maximum wage was 20 a week."

Yet somehow Brown's persistence sealed the deal. After losing the first game at Blackpool 7-0 and the second at Burnley 6-0, the defender wondered "what the hell I had done."

Incredibly it was the move that laid the first foundations for O'Neill, who turned down Sunderland's first advances five years ago because of his wife's ill-health, to take over Hurley's beloved club 54 years on.

"I remember that first journey up took me ten hours," said Hurley, who used to get more fan mail from Irish kids than from the Sunderland area. "It was a nightmare, but I have no regrets now. And I'm sure Martin will feel the same down the line because Sunderland are a fantastic club.

"I've never met him, but he seems a genuine person and he is a similar ilk to me. He's from a large family (six children), I'm from a family of seven children, and I just think that has helped make him the guy he is."

While other children of O'Neill's age were choosing between Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool to support along with either of Celtic or Rangers, he opted for Sunderland because of Hurley.

One of his long-lasting memories of supporting Sunderland, however, was not the delight of a Hurley challenge, more the moment when Brian Clough's career came to an end when he suffered cruciate ligament damage.

"Boxing Day, 1962, Brian Clough injured himself and I remember shedding a few tears," said O'Neill, who was part of Clough's Nottingham Forest squad that became champions of Europe. "After that I had a long time with him at Forest and I shed a few more!

"But listen, this is a great football club, a fantastic club, but I would not want to play too much on the Sunderland boyhood hero thing. That might give me two games grace, because we are in the results business.

"I didn't play for Sunderland and you are very selfishly involved in your own team after that. Now it has come together, I would like to make a success of it."

Neither Hurley nor Clough won a major trophy during their time at Sunderland, something O'Neill will be looking to address.

"I can see Brian now. I never once phoned him for advice (before he died) because I know what he would have said. He'd have said, 'You got yourself into this mess, you've got to get yourself out of it'," said O'Neill.

"He'd have probably just said, 'Good luck, get on with it'. What he would actually have said is, 'You'd never be as good as me, even if you had won a trophy'.

"I'm quite sure somewhere along the way, if he hadn't have been so successful at Derby and Forest, he wouldn't have minded managing here himself."

O'Neill has got such a chance. With Clough looking down and Hurley looking on, now it's his time to see if he can deliver.