Newcastle United were on the hunt for a new boss. After Graeme Souness 'never clicked' with the fans, late chairman Freddy Shepherd admitted it was 'vitally important that the new manager is popular, that the supporters like him'. With that in mind, ironically, all roads pointed to a boyhood Sunderland fan in 2006.
Yes, it was Martin O'Neill, who, of course, went on to manage the Black Cats, that repeatedly came out on top of opinion polls at the time - and with good reason. After all, this was the man who was Celtic's most successful manager since the great Jock Stein.
O'Neill may have been out of the game for around nine months at the time, while he cared for his wife, Geraldine, who had cancer, but the Northern Irishman was open to a return to management and met with Shepherd. So was it ever close?
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"I spoke then at the time to Mr Shepherd," O'Neill told ChronicleLive following the release of his new book, 'On Days Like These'. "I had a conversation. It never materialised. There were a number of people that they were interested in, but it didn't materialise anyway.
"Because I grew up as a Sunderland fanatic, I was getting a lot of letters from people saying, 'They will never forgive you if you go to Newcastle.' I think that was just from my brother - never mind anyone else!
"One never knows the other person until you're actually working with them, but we did meet up. There was a chance meeting again [years later] in Barbados. We had an evening together. It was absolutely fine. In all honesty, you don't know. We jokingly said it would not have worked, but who knows?"
Shepherd ultimately kept faith with caretaker Glenn Roeder, who was handed the job on a permanent basis, and the Newcastle boss oversaw a stunning turnaround that season after guiding his side into Europe. To put that transformation into perspective, Newcastle were only six points above the relegation zone when Roeder took charge.
There was even a memorable 4-1 Wear-Tyne derby win at the Stadium of Light along the way, which proved to be Alan Shearer's final competitive game before the Newcastle legend retired. Shearer went off injured that day, but scoring a penalty at the home of Magpies' bitter rivals was not a bad way to bow out in 2006 - just a couple of months after becoming the club's record goalscorer. Yet Shearer would never have broken Jackie Milburn's record if O'Neill had his way.
Celtic were searching for a replacement for club legend Henrik Larsson a couple of years previously and Shearer was very much at the top of O'Neill's shortlist at a time when Newcastle were about to have the legendary number nine, Patrick Kluivert, Craig Bellamy and Shola Ameobi all fighting it out for just two starting spots. Shearer, in the twilight of his career, was begrudgingly having to get used to being rested on occasion and the Newcastle skipper did speak to O'Neill. However, Shearer would have only considered leaving his boyhood club if Sir Bobby Robson told him he was not going to be a regular.
Sir Bobby, for his part, likened the prospect of Shearer moving to Celtic to selling the Scottish giants the Tyne Bridge so O'Neill had to look elsewhere - well, sort of - and instead signed team-mate Bellamy on loan several months later.
"I'm not so sure Alan would ever have wanted to leave Newcastle and I think maybe just patching things up with Sir Bobby was probably more on his mind," he said. "But, at one stage, it looked promising and I would have loved to have done it.
"He would have been a fantastic signing for Celtic - even in the latter stages of his career - because he was an out and out goalscorer. Henrik was off and going to go to Barcelona at the time, which he did do. He had seven fantastic years at Celtic and everyone wished him well.
"Of course, we would have loved to have kept Henrik but Alan Shearer coming to us - even in the autumn of his career - would have been terrific. Absolutely terrific. Alan loves Newcastle United Football Club and, regardless of what happened, it was going to be very difficult to prise him away, but it looked promising for a little while."
O'Neill did not need a second opinion on Shearer after seeing what the striker could do with his own eyes - even during his time managing Leicester City. In fact, in Shearer's first season at Newcastle, the legendary number nine scored a hat-trick in the final 13 minutes of a 4-3 win against the Foxes to turn the game on its head. The roof nearly came off St James' Park that night.
Yet, as electric as the atmosphere was then, managing at St James' with Leicester City or Aston Villa was nothing compared to taking Sunderland to the cathedral on the hill and O'Neill has not forgotten opposite number Alan Pardew 'jumping into my face' after a late penalty was awarded to Newcastle in a 1-1 draw in 2012. The pair have since spoken, but as O'Neill puts it: "We certainly would not have been rather gracious to each other immediately afterwards."
No wonder O'Neill, who also sampled the Glasgow and Second City derbies from the touchline, described the Tyne-Wear equivalent as 'really tough' yet 'exhilarating''.
"It can be really intimidating," he added. "That last couple of hundred yards on the bus journey, you want to get to the sanctuary of the dressing room as quickly as possible!"
ON DAYS LIKE THESE: My Life in Football by Martin O’Neill is published by Macmillan
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