I never felt I would be part of the international scene for 50 caps in my wildest dreams.

While fans were in the main supportive of Cunningham's views the club reacted furiously and chairman David Gold wondered "if Kenny would have said the same things if we'd stayed up Portsmouth had gone down and he'd been given a lucrative new contract". At association football he played for the Home Farm club from under-9s to under-17s before moving on to amateur club Tolka Rovers. His expectations to play out the season in England and use the experience to earn himself a good contract back in Ireland changed when three months before the end of that "trial" season Millwall offered him a further two-year contract.

After retirement as a player he worked as a pundit for RTÉ Sport and successfully completed the UEFA Pro Licence coaching qualification. Kenneth Edward "Kenny" Cunningham (born 28 June 1971) is an Irish former footballer who played as a defender. He spent his entire professional club career from 1989 to 2007 in England making more than 500 appearances in the Football League and Premier League playing for Millwall Wimbledon Birmingham City and Sunderland.