"There's only one Keano, " the swelled ranks of the Stadium of Light roared.

Keane might not even have heard, such was the intensity of his concentration on his new job.

He has the cut of a man who is comfortable in the sound of acclaim.

Roy Keane's first home game as manager of Sunderland got off to a reasonable start yesterday with a 1-1 draw with Leicester.

Just a couple of weeks into the job, he already looks like an old-timer.

It's as if he was waiting all his life to bark directions at his charges, but of course he wasn't, just for the past few months since the old body began to creak.

In Sunderland yesterday, a buzz was sizzling through the town.

Keane's is the second coming, following the first a few months ago of his old mucker and now boss, Niall Quinn, the club's chairman.

Then there's the jaw-crunching Drumaville consortium, a ragbag of millionaire Irishmen who, in the finest national tradition, practically all made their dosh in pubs or construction.

The Gaels are even to be found on the field, where four of the starting line-up have represented the old sod at some level in football.

Together these elements constitute an Irish revolution in this corner of Tyne and Wear, the oddly named amalgam of counties in the northeast of England.

Yesterday was the launch of what Quinn and his consortium hope will become an Irish phenomenon. In a country awash with money and bearing a passion for English soccer, this is the future.

In the past there have been many attempts to bring a British club to Dublin. Now the mountain is going to Mohammed, or at least the Irish are bound for Sunderland. With Ryanair already operating a route of its own, Aer Lingus and Aer Arann are understood to be ready to get in on what's expected to be a growing market over the coming months.

Yesterday, a chartered flight left Dublin at 10.30am, filled with assorted Drumaville members, their guests and what seemed like half the nation's reporters. The only player of note on the flight was from a different code, former Meath footballer Bernard Flynn.

Quinn, like Keane, has already relocated to the northeast to commence the greening. Sunderland doesn't have an airport capable of taking a planeload of Irish football fans, so Newcastle obliged instead.

Forty-five minutes later by road, and the Stadium of Light appeared. The crowds milled around outside, waiting to catch a glimpse of their heroes, while the club's new owners stole past unnoticed.

Inside, everybody tucked into the pre-match grub and were even treated to an audience with three injured Irish players. Outside, the stadium was enjoying a new lease of life. At the last home game two weeks ago, 23,000 struggled in to witness a team in the doldrums. As Sunderland legend Jim Montgomery put it, "A fortnight ago, it was as dead as a doornail in here".

Yesterday, the attendance was closer to 40,000. It's all boom on Wearside now, a little piece of England where the Celtic Tiger has gone on safari.

SPORT, PAGE 29