Shay Given: ‘Do you ever get over being dropped for an FA Cup final?’
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Version 0 of 1. Shay Given has been trying his best to put a positive spin on his three previous trips to Wembley when it dawns upon the Aston Villa goalkeeper that he is kidding nobody as he dances around a question about whether the stadium actually holds any happy memories for him. “It was a politician’s answer, wasn’t it,” Given says, laughing. The truth is that Given is desperate for his luck to change in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Wembley. Given was in the Newcastle United team that lost 2-0 to Arsenal in the FA Cup final in 1998, dropped from the starting XI at Wembley the following year when Ruud Gullit’s side were beaten by Manchester United – a decision that still rankles with him – and an unused Manchester City substitute during their triumph over Stoke City in 2011. It hardly makes for great reading and Given, who turns 39 on Monday, is not the sort of player to put a trophy alongside his name when his part in that final with City was confined to warming up with Joe Hart beforehand. “Not really,” the Republic of Ireland international says, when asked whether he considers himself an FA Cup winner. “I’ve got a winner’s medal at home – I don’t even know where it is, if I’m being honest. It was nice to be part of winning it with Man City but when you don’t play it doesn’t have the same value to it … you don’t really get that feeling that you’ve done anything.” Not making much of a contribution has been a frustrating and familiar story for Given in the twilight of a distinguished career. Signed for £3.5m from City in 2011 and handed a five-year contract, Given was Villa’s No1 in his first season at the club, under Alex McLeish, but lost his place early the following campaign, when Paul Lambert plumped for Brad Guzan instead, and has been forced to take a back seat ever since. He was demoted to third choice at one stage, loaned to Middlesbrough for three months last season and, in a bizarre twist, asked to stand in as Lambert’s temporary assistant this time last year. “Weird,” Given says, laughing and shaking his head in relation to that last experience. “Well, he asked me. I said yes, of course, at the time. Life in general is too short to have grudges and stuff. Whatever way you’ve been treated, you’ve got to move on.” This season, the FA Cup has provided Given with a rare window of opportunity to impress at Villa Park and he has taken his chance. His performances have helped Villa to reach the last four and, with a little help from Roy Keane, convinced Martin O’Neill, the Ireland manager, that a goalkeeper a year short of his 40th birthday is still good enough to start for his country, as was the case when Given won his 128th cap against Poland last month. “I think Roy was instrumental in getting me back with the Irish squad,” Given says. “But the final decision lies with Martin and I was delighted to play.” Yet as much as Given is thrilled to be back in the limelight, there is no escaping the disappointment he feels at spending so long on the sidelines. His pride, he admits, has been wounded. “Yeah, you want to play,” he says. “I left Man City to come to Aston Villa to play so, of course, it’s frustrating. But this run has helped me, it’s shown some of the fans as well that I’m still capable and hopefully it gives a seed of doubt into the manager’s head as well that if he wants to mix it up in the Premier League, I’ve shown in the games that I’m good enough still to play.” The brilliant fingertip save that Given made to turn a ferocious shot from Leicester City’s Matty James around the post during Villa’s fifth-round victory was a reminder that he can still cut it at the highest level. Tim Sherwood was watching from the stand that day, after being appointed 24 hours earlier, and it is hard to imagine the Villa manager straying from the policy of picking Given in the FA Cup if Villa get to the final. “It would be [difficult to take],” Given says. “It happened before at Newcastle, I played every round up to the final and didn’t play in the final, the second one. But you’ve got to just look at [the Liverpool game] first and not be thinking about the final or anything like that yet. I’m sure if we get there, the manager will make the right decision for the club.” Given offers a candid response when asked how long it took to get over what happened at Wembley in 1999, when Steve Harper was picked ahead of him. “Do you ever get over it, I suppose? It’s not an easy one and I think it was Ruud Gullit at the time who didn’t even tell me, he got the goalkeeping coach, Terry Gennoe, to tell me I wasn’t playing. That was a bit of a slap in the face. But you can’t look back in football. You’ve just got to look forward and at the end of your career maybe look back and think you were harshly done by or whatever.” With one year left on his deal at Villa, Given is unsure what the future holds. He senses that he has “come a bit closer to playing again because of the new manager” and plans to sit down with Sherwood, a former Blackburn Rovers team-mate, at the end of the season to discuss his position, mindful that he will need to be featuring more regularly if he is to have any chance of starting for Ireland in the European Championship finals in France next summer, should they qualify. For the moment, however, it is all about Villa and whether they can cause an upset against Liverpool. Given talks about how Sherwood’s positive demeanour has rubbed off on the players and “given us a bit more confidence in ourselves”, no one more so than Christian Benteke, who has scored eight goals in his last six games and poses the biggest threat to Steven Gerrard’s hopes of signing off his Liverpool career with a place in the FA Cup final. “We’ve got him back now, or the manager has, to the Christian we all really know,” Given says. As for Given, he is just hoping that the 20 family and friends coming over from Ireland will finally get the chance to see him smiling at a stadium that is supposed to be the stuff of dreams. “As a kid growing up you were diving around the garden thinking you were diving around at Wembley, so I am looking forward to diving around Wembley for real on Sunday,” he says. “But not too much – just in the warm-up!” |