Sunderland star reveals amusing toilet phone call leading to 2018 transfer

The midfielder-come-defender recently celebrated 200 appearances in all competitions with the Black Cats after joining the club in League One five seasons ago.

Checkatrade Trophy and League One play-off final defeats followed before the Covid-curtailed season and then a loss in the semi-finals with a Papa John’s Trophy win along the way.

O'Nien started as Sunderland finally achieved promotion at Wembley against his former club Wycombe Wanderers in front of 45,000 Wearsiders in London and has now established himself in the Championship.

Looking back on the move to Sunderland from Wycombe Wanderers, though, O'Nien revealed an amusing anecdote surrounding the transfer.

“When I first heard there was interest from Sunderland, I was on a dog walk with my now wife but I was actually in a toilet as I need the loo! My phone was off.

"So my agent had tried ringing me all the night before and had been messaging me all morning but I never got anything through so I turn my phone on and got about 15 messages and five or six missed calls.

"I rang him back straight away saying that, ‘I’m on a dog walk, well actually I’m on the loo but I am on a dog walk, what do you need?’ And he said, ‘Sunderland are interested’.

"I genuinely thought he was having me on. He said, ‘This is happening and you need to get your head around it’. And I was like, ‘Okay, okay!’ It was very surreal. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was an incredible moment.

"Five/six hours in the car. I had my car packed full of all my stuff. I came to the training ground on the Monday morning to do my medical. The doctor asked if I’d ever had an injury before and I was like, ‘No no no, everything is fine, I’ve always been fine, honestly.

"As soon as I got through that I think I then signed everything and everything was complete and I was one happy man. They then said, ‘Do you want to go down to the stadium?’ I was like, ‘Silly question! Yes, of course I do’."