Magical Magpie legends: Shay Given (part two)
Posted on June 22nd, 2011 | 49 Comments |
Part two: Shay celebrates his 300th game!
As Given’s first 5 years at Newcastle came to an end, the 2002-2003 season began with United qualifying for the Champion’s League first group stage after a comfortable 5-0 aggregate win over Bosnia and Herzegovina’s FK Željezničar.
At the season’s start, Sir Bobby Robson had decided that he was going to alternate Given with Steve Harper for our European matches, a decision which did not bode to well with the Irishman:
“Personally I’m not adjusting very well to being in and out every week, I’d rather play in every game. But I’m not the manager and I don’t pick the team. It’s his decision, but I was very disappointed when I first found out. Hopefully he won’t do it too often. I don’t think you can keep alternating between the keepers for very long, but I don’t know what will happen.
“Personally I prefer to play every game. I don’t agree with all the chopping and changing. I don’t think it’s right. It’s unrest for myself, the team and Steve because it’s also hard for him just coming in for a couple of games.”
Nevertheless Given amassed 12 European appearances including our ‘great escape’ in Rotterdam, to go along with another season in which he played every Premier League game. On April 30th Given won his 41st International cap as a Newcastle player meaning he surpassed Alf McMichael to become United’s all time most capped player while playing for the club.
“I am a very proud man.” – Shay Given on becoming Newcastle United’s most capped player.
The end of the 2002-03 season saw United finish in 3rd place, qualifying for the Champions League preliminary stage for the 2nd consecutive year. Newcastle had throughout the season challenged for the title but fell short towards the end.
“The fans have had to wait far too long for success and I’m sure they’re fed up. We haven’t won anything and when you look at the money spent, the size of our stadium and the backing from the fans, it just isn’t good enough. As a professional you play to win trophies and I’m disappointed that another season passed by with us empty-handed. It’s not a nice feeling.” – Shay commenting on another season without a trophy.
The 2003-04 season saw United start by failing to qualify for the Champions League group stage after defeat to Partizan Belgrade. Newcastle had won the 1st leg 1-0, largely thanks to some heroics by Given in Serbia, but lost the 2nd leg 1-0 at St James’ Park, meaning a penalty shoot-out would ensue.
The shoot-out began with Shearer blasting over, and Dyer along with Woodgate having their penalties saved. Shola Ameobi along with Lomana LuaLua, managed to convert during the shoot-out and Given also saved one, coupled with a few Belgrade players also missing the target. Eventually it was Aaron Hughes who missed for United, and Cirvovic stepped up to fire Belgrade into the Champion’s League group stage, winning the match 4-3 on penalties.
Failing to qualify for the Champions League that year meant Given and Newcastle competing in the UEFA Cup (Europa League), where United got to the semi-finals. A Didier Drogba double did the damage for Marseille at the Stade Vélodrome, in a 2nd leg 2-0 victory, after a stalemate at James’ Park in the 1st leg. Newcastle suffered with massive injury problems, causing Sir Bobby Robson to field a weakened team that night, citing Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger to speak publicly about how unfortunate our injury list was, and that his own Arsenal side would have struggled if they had the same amount of key players missing. Given totalled 13 European matches along with appearing again in every Premier League game that season. Newcastle’s injury problems that season also saw Given comment in March:
“If we want to try to run it close in the Premiership, which has got to be the aim, we have to buy players in the summer. It is already a good bunch of players but so are Arsenal’s and Chelsea’s and Manchester United’s and they have still strengthened and brought people in. If you don’t you get left behind. That is why those three are so far ahead of us. It is no guarantee because over the last 10 years this club has probably spent more than anyone. So you can’t blame the chairman or the board for not being there to back the manager.”
The 2003-04 season was the 3rd consecutive year Given had appeared in every Premier League match meaning he became number one in the official Premier League consecutive appearance list. The record is now held by American ‘keeper Brad Friedel. Newcastle finished the season in 5th position qualifying for the UEFA Cup.
“With Shay, you can never rule him out. Shay could even grow another muscle by Thursday and recover – he has done things like that in the past. They don’t call him Lazarus for no reason” Fellow goalkeeper and former team-mate Steve Harper.
In what Shay probably perceived at the time to be his most tumultuous season since he arrived in 1997, the start of the 2004-05 season saw Sir Bobby Robson sacked by decision making genius, Freddy Shepherd, and ‘Disciplinarian’ Graeme Souness was appointed as manager to “bang some heads together” as the manager himself put it..
Commenting on Graeme Souness, Given stated in September 2004:
“It’s been so far so good. Actually it’s been really good. Training’s been good. Everything’s being going really well. It’s up to everyone to impress the new manager and show their ability.
“It’s a fresh start for us all. We’ve all been given a clean slate and it’s up to us to show we’re good enough to be in the team.”
However, after Newcastle’s league form began to stutter, Given voiced his concern in December:
“The fans aren’t happy and they have every right not to be. We’ve not been doing well enough this season or towards the end of last season’s campaign.”
And in February:
“It’s just doing my head in. We should be talking about the football and not about other things. We are a football club. You don’t hear stories like that coming out of Arsenal or Manchester United or even Chelsea – they are totally football stories.
“We must stop the bad press and try to focus totally on success on the pitch. You can’t follow every player everywhere they go, but every player has got to stand up and be responsible for what they do. It is difficult. Some of the lads are young and don’t know any better to a certain degree, but we all make mistakes in life, so it is important that we look forward rather than back.” – Shay Given on all the bad publicity that the club seems to generate.” (February 2005)
This of course was also the same season in which Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer started fighting with each other in a match against Aston Villa at St James’ Park.
Newcastle clearly ‘improved’ on their previous 4th, 3rd, and 5th placed finishes in the Premier League by finishing the season in 14th (lowest Premier League finishing position at the time). Given finished with 36 league appearances but before the seasons end, some more notable developments occurred…
In a home match with Israeli side Bnei Sakhnin on the 16th of September 2004, Shay overtook Alan Shearer as having the most European appearances in Newcastle’s history. It was Given’s 40th European appearance. On November 25th in a 4-0 away victory in France against Sochaux, Given reached his 300th game for Newcastle. On this the ‘keeper said:
“It’s great that I’ve played so many games for such a good club and hopefully there’ll be 300 more. You just don’t know. I suppose the two FA Cup semi-finals stick out and Barcelona a few years back when we beat them at home – that was a big game in the Champions League. There are some great memories and some great trips in Europe as well. Newcastle have played in Europe most seasons that I’ve been here, so that’s a bonus as well. But we’re still missing that silverware, including myself. I’d really like to win something, and that’s what it boils down to. That’s 300 games and we haven’t won anything – but hopefully I can do that and the team can do that. We’re a big club and we’ve got a great squad of players. All that’s missing really is something that we haven’t won. – Shay Given on passing the magical 300 appearances mark for Newcastle.
“I’m worried about the club’s direction. It is going to be very hard now for the chairman and the manager to attract the necessary quality to a club that is in the InterToto Cup. I truly believed that we could win the Uefa Cup, more so than the FA Cup. I couldn’t speak properly to anyone for days after that, now it looks like Sporting, a team we were capable of beating, are going to win it.
To me the Uefa Cup was Newcastle’s big chance of making the breakthrough and finally winning a trophy.” – Shay on being knocked out of the UEFA and FA Cup (May 2005).
NUFCBlog Author: Jimbob
Backpacker extraordinaire and current resident of sunny Sheffield. Loves Marmite, hates peanut butter. Sleeps twice a day, wrestles Polar Bears because he can and regards himself as cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce.
Jimbob has written 40 articles on this blog.
Great post mate, top research man.
It’s all about Shay when he talks like, those statements just reminded me.