Antony Nigel Martyn (born 11 August 1966), more commonly known as Nigel Martyn, is a former English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper from 1987 until 2006

Having started his career with Bristol Rovers he moved to Crystal Palace where he became the first £1million goalkeeper in British football and also won the Full Members Cup. Martyn then left to spend six seasons at Leeds United. He went on to win 23 England caps. An ankle injury forced him to retire in 2006, following three seasons at Everton.

Club career[link]

Early career[link]

Born in St Austell, Cornwall, Martyn started his career as a midfielder until invited to play as a goalkeeper for his brother's works team when he was sixteen. He started by playing amateur football for Cornish sides Heavy Transport F.C., Bugle and St Blazey while working in a plastics factory and for a coal merchant,^[1] before beginning his professional career with Bristol Rovers in 1987 after apparently having been "spotted" by Rovers' tea lady whilst she was on holiday.^[2]

While still in Cornwall he was also a cricketer, and played with Cornwall Schoolboys as a wicket keeper, as well as Fowey C.C.^[1] Since his retirement from professional football, he has returned to cricket, playing regularly for a local Leeds team.

Crystal Palace[link]

He was transferred to Crystal Palace for a fee of £1 million in 1989, becoming the first goalkeeper to attract a million-pound transfer fee in English football.^[3] It was at Crystal Palace that Nigel first gained international recognition with a call up to the full England side. He remained at Palace for seven seasons, appearing 349 times for his club, including the 1990 FA Cup Final (where Palace were beaten by Manchester United on a replay, and the 1991 Zenith Data Systems Cup final (where Palace beat Everton). In 1996, he signed with Leeds United, setting another record fee for a goalkeeper of £2.25m.

In 2005, Palace supporters voted Martyn into their Centenary XI.

Leeds United[link]

Martyn was signed by boss Howard Wilkinson in the summer of 1996/97, along with another high profile capture in the form of Britain's most expensive teenager, Lee Bowyer. Martyn's form for United, both at home and on the continent in European competition was outstanding - most notably in a man-of-the-match display at the Olympic Stadium v AS Roma in the 1999/2000 UEFA Cup campaign, of which Leeds reached the semi-finals. Martyn was also a huge part of the squad that eliminated illustrious clubs such as FC Barcelona, S.S. Lazio and Deportivo La Coruna in the following season's UEFA Champions League campaign, leading them to the last four.

In total, Martyn played as Leeds' first-choice goalkeeper for six seasons and his consistency was such that years later at a supporters dinner, the Cornishman was named officially as United's greatest ever goalkeeper, beating off competition from the likes of Gary Sprake and John Lukic - men who both won championship medals at Elland Road.

However, it was a disagreement with new Leeds manager Terry Venables,^[4] combined with the increasingly good form of youngster Paul Robinson, that kept him from playing any games in Leeds' 2002-03 season and after a string of unused substitute appearances, Martyn was told he could find new employers.

On 10 April 2006, he was voted as part of Leeds United's greatest team being the only player from after the Revie Era to be part of the team.^[5] He is still well regarded by the Leeds United fans and was recently involved in the "Back the Bid Leeds" campaign for Leeds to be one of the host cities in England's World Cup 2018 bid.

Everton[link]

In summer 2003, Leeds were approached by Chelsea and Everton with offers to sign Martyn. Both clubs were offering the out-of-favour goalkeeper a backup post: at Chelsea, he would understudy Carlo Cudicini; at Everton, the first-choice was Richard Wright. Martyn chose to move to Everton, and six games into the season, an injury to Wright gave him his Everton debut. His performances for the first team during Wright's recovery were such that Martyn remained Everton's first-choice goalkeeper even after Wright returned from injury.In that season he almost single-handedly kept Everton in the league that season with stunning performances particarly against Liverpool in the merseyside derby at Anfield with stunning saves from Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dietmar Hamann.

Martyn was one of Everton's best performers in the 2004–05 season when they achieved their best Premier League finish of fourth. Many fans believed that Martyn almost single-handedly stopped them from slipping down the table after Thomas Gravesen's departure.^{[citation needed]} He produced some of the best form of his career, despite being 38 years of age, to the delight of the Everton fans, with whom he remains a favourite. In his final season at Everton he was picking up many injuries and missed the remainder of the season. His final appreance for Everton was his 100 game for the club against Chelsea in an FA Cup tie at Goodison Park which ended 1-1 after Martyn's amazing performance, making numerous excellent saves. It was a fitting end to Martyn's Everton career, and he is conisdered by many as the club's best goalkeeper since Neville Southall.

On 8 June 2006, Martyn announced his retirement from football due to an ankle injury.^[6] David Moyes said that he would miss Martyn as he was his "greatest ever signing".

International career[link]

Martyn made his debut for the England national side in Moscow in 1992, becoming one of the few Cornishmen to play for England. He earned only 23 caps for his national side, spending the peak of his career as second-choice goalkeeper behind David Seaman. The timing of his career is considered to be a great disappointment as a player of his calibre would have collected many more caps for the England national side in other eras.

Coaching career[link]

Martyn spent time as goalkeeping coach at Bradford City,^[7] a role he started in March 2007 as a favour for former Leeds United teammate David Wetherall, who was then caretaker manager at Bradford.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Nigel Martyn career stats at Soccerbase
• Crystal Palace Hall of Fame entry
• "Leeds-fans" profile of Martyn
• "ToffeeWeb" article

England squads v t e England squad – UEFA Euro 1992 1 Woods 2 Curle 3 Pearce 4 Keown 5 Walker 6 Wright 7 Platt 8 Steven 9 Clough 10 Lineker (c) 11 Sinton 12 Palmer 13 Martyn 14 Dorigo 15 Webb 16 Merson 17 Smith 18 Daley 19 Batty 20 Shearer Coach: Taylor v t e England squad – 1998 FIFA World Cup 1 Seaman 2 Campbell 3 Le Saux 4 Ince 5 Adams 6 Southgate 7 Beckham 8 Batty 9 Shearer (c) 10 Sheringham 11 McManaman 12 Neville 13 Martyn 14 Anderton 15 Merson 16 Scholes 17 Lee 18 Keown 19 L. Ferdinand 20 Owen 21 R. Ferdinand 22 Flowers Coach: Hoddle v t e England squad – UEFA Euro 2000 1 Seaman 2 G. Neville 3 P. Neville 4 Campbell 5 Adams 6 Keown 7 Beckham 8 Scholes 9 Shearer (c) 10 Owen 11 McManaman 12 Southgate 13 Martyn 14 Ince 15 Barry 16 Gerrard 17 Wise 18 Barmby 19 Heskey 20 Phillips 21 Fowler 22 Wright Coach: Keegan v t e England squad – 2002 FIFA World Cup 1 Seaman 2 Mills 3 A. Cole 4 Sinclair 5 Ferdinand 6 Campbell 7 Beckham (c) 8 Scholes 9 Fowler 10 Owen 11 Heskey 12 Brown 13 Martyn 14 Bridge 15 Keown 16 Southgate 17 Sheringham 18 Hargreaves 19 J. Cole 20 Vassell 21 Butt 22 James 23 Dyer Coach: Eriksson

Robert Frank (born November 9, 1924, Zürich), is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American society. Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.

Background and early photography career[link]

Frank was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Switzerland. His mother, Rosa, was Swiss, but his father, Hermann, had become stateless after World War I and had to apply for the Swiss citizenship of Frank and his older brother, Manfred. Though Frank and his family remained safe in Switzerland during World War II, the threat of Nazism nonetheless affected his understanding of oppression. He turned to photography, in part as a means to escape the confines of his business-oriented family and home, and trained under a few photographers and graphic designers before he created his first hand-made book of photographs, 40 Fotos, in 1946. Frank emigrated to the United States in 1947, and secured a job in New York City as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar. He soon left to travel in South America and Europe. He created another hand-made book of photographs that he shot in Peru, and returned to the U.S. in 1950. That year was momentous for Frank, who, after meeting Edward Steichen, participated in the group show 51 American Photographers at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); he also married fellow artist Mary Frank née Mary Lockspeiser, with whom he had two children, Andrea and Pablo.

Though he was initially optimistic about United States society and culture, Frank's perspective quickly changed as he confronted the fast pace of American life and what he saw as an overemphasis on money. He now saw America as an often bleak and lonely place, a perspective that became evident in his later photography. Frank's own dissatisfaction with the control that editors exercised over his work also undoubtedly colored his experience. He continued to travel, moving his family briefly to Paris. In 1953, he returned to New York and continued to work as a freelance photojournalist for magazines including McCall's, Vogue, and Fortune. Associating with other contemporary photographers such as Saul Leiter and Diane Arbus, he helped form what Jane Livingston has termed The New York School of photographers during the 1940s and 1950s.

[edit] The Americans

With the aid of his major artistic influence, the photographer Walker Evans, Frank secured a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1955 to travel across the United States and photograph all strata of its society. Cities he visited included Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan; Savannah, Georgia; Miami Beach and St. Petersburg, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Butte, Montana; and Chicago, Illinois.^[1] He took his family along with him for part of his series of road trips over the next two years, during which time he took 28,000 shots. Only 83 of those were finally selected by him for publication in The Americans. Frank's journey was not without incident. While driving through Arkansas, he was arbitrarily thrown in jail^[2] after being stopped by the police; elsewhere in the South, he was told by a sheriff that he had "an hour to leave town."

Shortly after returning to New York in 1957, Frank met Beat writer Jack Kerouac on the sidewalk outside a party and showed him the photographs from his travels. Kerouac immediately told Frank "Sure I can write something about these pictures," and he contributed the introduction to the U.S. edition of The Americans. Frank also became lifelong friends with Allen Ginsberg, and was one of the main visual artists to document the Beat subculture, which felt an affinity with Frank's interest in documenting the tensions between the optimism of the 1950s and the realities of class and racial differences. The irony that Frank found in the gloss of American culture and wealth over this tension gave his photographs a clear contrast to those of most contemporary American photojournalists, as did his use of unusual focus, low lighting and cropping that deviated from accepted photographic techniques.

This divergence from contemporary photographic standards gave Frank difficulty at first in securing an American publisher. Les Américains was first published in 1958 by Robert Delpire in Paris, and finally in 1959 in the United States by Grove Press, where it initially received substantial criticism. Popular Photography, for one, derided his images as "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness." Though sales were also poor at first, the fact that the introduction was by the popular Kerouac helped it reach a larger audience. Over time and through its inspiration of later artists, The Americans became a seminal work in American photography and art history, and is the work with which Frank is most clearly identified. In 1961, Frank received his first individual show, entitled Robert Frank: Photographer, at the Art Institute of Chicago. He also showed at MoMA in New York in 1962.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of The Americans, a new edition was released worldwide on May 30, 2008. Robert Frank discussed with his publisher, Gerhard Steidl, the idea of producing a new edition using modern scanning and the finest tritone printing. The starting point was to bring original prints from New York to Göttingen, Germany, where Steidl is based. In July 2007, Frank visited Göttingen. A new format for the book was worked out and new typography selected. A new cover was designed and Frank chose the book cloth, foil embossing and the endpaper. Most significantly, as he has done for every edition of The Americans, Frank changed the cropping of many of the photographs, usually cropping less. Two images were changed completely from the original 1958 and 1959 editions. A celebratory exhibit of The Americans was displayed in 2009 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.^[3]

The second section of the four-section, 2009, SFMOMA [1] exhibition displays Frank’s original application to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial (which funded the primary work on the Americans project), along with vintage contact sheets, letters to photographer Walker Evans and author Jack Kerouac, and two early manuscript versions of Kerouac’s introduction to the book. Also exhibited are three collages (made from more than 115 original rough work prints) that were assembled under Frank’s supervision in 2007 and 2008, revealing his intended themes as well as his first rounds of image selection.

Films[link]

By the time The Americans was published in the United States, Frank had moved away from photography to concentrate on filmmaking. Among his films was the 1959 Pull My Daisy, which was written and narrated by Kerouac and starred Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and others from the Beat circle. The Beats emphasized spontaneity, and the film conveyed the quality of having been thrown together or even improvised. Pull My Daisy was accordingly praised for years as an improvisational masterpiece, until Frank's co-director, Alfred Leslie, revealed in a November 28, 1968 article in the Village Voice that the film was actually carefully planned, rehearsed, and directed by him and Frank, who shot the film with professional lighting.

In 1960, Frank was staying in Pop artist George Segal's basement while filming Sin of Jesus with a grant from Walter K. Gutman. Isaac Babel's story was transformed to center on a woman working on a chicken farm in New Jersey. It was originally supposed to be filmed in six weeks in and around New Brunswick, but Frank ended up shooting for six months.

His 1972 documentary of the Rolling Stones, Cocksucker Blues, is arguably his best known film. The film shows the Stones while on their '72 tour, engaging in heavy drug use and group sex. Perhaps more disturbing to the Stones when they saw the finished product, however, was the degree to which Frank faithfully captured the loneliness and despair of life on the road. Mick Jagger reportedly told Frank, "It's a fucking good film, Robert, but if it shows in America we'll never be allowed in the country again." The Stones sued to prevent the film's release, and it was disputed whether Frank as the artist or the Stones as those who hired the artist actually owned the copyright. A court order resolved this with Solomonic wisdom by restricting the film to being shown no more than five times per year and only in the presence of Frank. Frank's photography also appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones' album Exile on Main St..

Other films by Robert Frank include Me and My Brother (film), "Sin of Jesus", "Keep Busy", and Candy Mountain which he co-directed with Rudy Wurlitzer.

Filmography[link]

• 1959: Pull My Daisy (mit Alfred Leslie)
• 1961: The Sin of Jesus
• 1963: O.K. End Here
• 1965/68: Me And My Brother
• 1969: Conversations in Vermont
• 1969: Life-Raft Earth
• 1971: About Me: A Musical
• 1972: Cocksucker Blues
• 1975: Keep Busy (Mit Rudy Wurlitzer)
• 1980: Life Dances On
• 1981: Energy and How to Get It (Mit Rudy Wurlitzer und Gary Hill)
• 1983: This Song For Jack
• 1985: Home Improvements
• 1987: Candy Mountain (Mit Rudy Wurlitzer)
• 1989: Hunter
• 1990: C’est vrai! (One Hour)
• 1992: Last Supper
• 1994: Moving Pictures
• 2002: Paper Route
• 2004, 2008: True Story

Return to still images[link]

Though Frank continued to be interested in film and video, he returned to still images in the 1970s, publishing his second photographic book, The Lines of My Hand, in 1972. This work has been described as a "visual autobiography", and consists largely of personal photographs. However, he largely gave up "straight" photography to instead create narratives out of constructed images and collages, incorporating words and multiple frames of images that were directly scratched and distorted on the negatives. None of this later work has achieved an impact comparable to that of The Americans. As some critics have pointed out, this is perhaps because Frank began playing with constructed images more than a decade after Robert Rauschenberg introduced his silkscreen composites—in contrast to The Americans, Frank's later images simply were not beyond the pale of accepted technique and practice by that time.

Frank and Mary separated in 1969. He remarried, to sculptor June Leaf, and in 1971, moved to the community of Mabou, Nova Scotia in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in Canada. In 1974, tragedy struck when his daughter, Andrea, was killed in a plane crash in Tikal, Guatemala. Also around this time, his son, Pablo, was first hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. Much of Frank's subsequent work has dealt with the impact of the loss of both his daughter and subsequently his son, who died in an Allentown, Pennsylvania hospital in 1994. In 1995, he founded the Andrea Frank Foundation, which provides grants to artists.

Since his move to Nova Scotia, Canada, Frank has divided his time between his home there in a former fisherman's shack on the coast, and his Bleecker Street loft in New York. He has acquired a reputation for being a recluse (particularly since the death of Andrea), declining most interviews and public appearances. He has continued to accept eclectic assignments, however, such as photographing the 1984 Democratic National Convention, and directing music videos for artists such as New Order ("Run"), and Patti Smith ("Summer Cannibals"). Frank continues to produce both films and still images, and has helped organize several retrospectives of his art. In 1994, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC presented the most comprehensive retrospective of Frank's work to date, entitled Moving Out. Frank was awarded the prestigious Hasselblad Award for photography in 1996. His 1997 award exhibition at the Hasselblad Center in Goteborg, Sweden was entitled Flamingo, as was the accompanying published catalog.

Exhibitions[link]

• 2008, Robert Frank, Paris, Museum Folkwang, Essen
• 2009, The Americans, National Gallery of Art, Washington D C
• 2009, Robert Frank. Die Filme, C/O Berlin, Berlin

Photo Books[link]

• 1958: Les Americains, French, Published by Robert Delpire, Paris
• 1959: The Americans, English, introduction by Jack Kerouac
• 1972: The lines of my hand
• 1997: Flamingo
• 2003: Twenty-four Photographs
• 2006: Come again
• 2007: London/Wales
• 2008: Die Amerikaner, German, reconstructed version of "The Americans" by Robert Frank, introduction by Jack Kerouac; Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2008 in German ISBN 978-3-86521-658-7. In English ISBN 978-3-86521-584-0. In Chinese, itled Meiguoren ISBN 978-3-86521-657-1
• 2012: Ferne Nähe/Distant Closeness. Hommage für Robert Walser/A Tribute to Robert Walser. ISBN 978-3-9523586-2-7.

Preface[link]

• 2010: to: The Silent Aftermath of Space, Caleb Cain Marcus, Damiani

Quotes[link]

"When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice." Robert Frank, Life (26 November 1951), p. 21

"Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy - the tone range isn't right and things like that - but they're far superior to the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention." (Elliott Erwitt)

References[link]

1. ^ "Road Show," The New Yorker
2. ^ http://www.photopermit.org/articles/FrankReport.html
3. ^ "Robert Frank: The Americans". Steidl. http://www.steidlville.com/books/695-The-Americans.html. 

4. Philip Gefter, Snapshots From The American Road, The New York Times, Dec. 14, 2008

Further reading[link]

• Alexander, Stuart. – Robert Frank: A Bibliography, Filmography, and Exhibition Chronology 1946-1985. ISSN 0739-4845 LOC#: 86-071793
• Frank, Robert. – Robert Frank: Storylines (Turtleback) ISBN 3-86521-041-4
• Frank, Robert. – Twenty-four Photographs. In: Corina Caduff and Reto Sorg (Ed.): Nationalliteraturen heute – ein Fantom? Tradition und Imagination des Schweizerischen als Problem. Programmheft zur Internationalen Tagung vom 18. bis 21. Juni 2003 im Schauspielhaus Zürich. Mit Originalbeiträgen von Robert Frank und Michail Schischkin. Thun: Report 2003 [Switzerland]. ISBN 3-907591-30-5
• Green, Jonathan. – American Photography: A Critical History (Abrams). ISBN 0-8109-1814-5 Chapter 5, "The Americans: Politics and Alienation"
• Janis, Eugenia Parry and Wendy MacNeil, eds. – Photography Within the Humanities, Addison House Publishers, Danbury, NH, 1977. ISBN 0-89169-013-1, see pp. 52–65 for the transcript of a talk and interview with Robert Frank, conducted at Wellesley College on 14 April 1975
• Leo, Vince. – Robert Frank: From Compromise to Collaboration. ("Parkett" Issue 42 1994 Pg 8-23)
• Nericcio, William Anthony. – Cinematography, Photography, and Literature: The Aesthetic Triptych of Robert Frank (MOPA, San Diego, 2000) An online essay on Pull My Daisy with illustrations and film-clip
• Papageorge, Tod. – Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence, New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery, 1981. ISBN 0-89467-015-8
• Sandeen, Eric. – Picturing An Exhibition. ISBN 0-8263-1558-5, see chapter 5: "Edward Steichen, Robert Frank, and American Modernism"
• Tucker, Anne and Philip Brookman, eds. – New York to Nova Scotia ISBN 3-86521-013-9 Hardcover: ISBN 0-8212-1623-6
• Gefter, Philip. - Photography After Frank (Aperture, 2009): ISBN 978-1-59711-095-2

Bibliographies[link]

• Frank Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)

External links[link]

• Robert Frank at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Frank’s Masterpiece: “The Americans” at 50
• Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans", National Gallery of Art
• Robert Frank at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Elson Lecture 2009: Robert Frank, National Gallery of Art
• "Seeing Beauty in Our Shadows Robert Frank's 'The Americans,' unpopular when first published, has shaped the way America looks at itself," The Wall Street Journal, September 19-20, 2009
• Reading the Modern Photography Book: Changing Perceptions, National Gallery of Art
• Rare Robert Frank available online.

• Robert Frank on National Public Radio
• Robert Frank in the SIKART dictionary and database
• Tod Papageorge on Walker Evans and Robert Frank
• Tate Modern: Robert Frank
• Frank Films
• Essay
• 'Robert Frank: Dissecting The American Image' by Jno Cook
• Illustrated book review of The Americans
• Robert Frank at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Robert Frank in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Shay Given

Shay Given playing for Manchester City F.C. against Polish side Lech Poznań in November 2010
Personal information
Full name	Séamus John James Given[1]
Date of birth	(1976-04-20) 20 April 1976 (age 36)[1]
Place of birth	Lifford, County Donegal, Ireland
Height	1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) [2]
Playing position	Goalkeeper
Club information
Current club	Aston Villa
Number	1
Youth career
1991–1994	Celtic
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1994–1997	Blackburn Rovers	0	(0)
1996	→ Swindon Town (loan)	5	(0)
1996	→ Sunderland (loan)	17	(0)
1997–2009	Newcastle United	344	(0)
2009–2011	Manchester City	50	(0)
2011–	Aston Villa	32	(0)
National team‡
1996–	Republic of Ireland	121	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 13 May 2012 (UTC). † Appearances (Goals). ‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Séamus John James "Shay" Given (born 20 April 1976) is an Irish footballer who plays for Aston Villa and the Republic of Ireland national team as a goalkeeper.

With 121 international caps over the last 15 years, Given has made more appearances for the Republic of Ireland than any other player in history.^[3] With more than 100 caps, he is thus a member of the FIFA Century Club. He gained his first international cap in 1996, and has rarely missed a full international game since. He played in goal during every match for his country during the 2002 FIFA World Cup campaign,^[4] helping them to reach the knockout stage. He was later on the pitch in Paris when the Republic was controversially knocked out of the playoffs for a spot in the 2010 FIFA World Cup by France before helping his team qualify for UEFA Euro 2012.

Given started his playing career as a youth goalkeeper at Celtic in the early 1990s, leaving in 1994 having been deemed surplus to requirements, Given was part of the Sunderland team who won the Football League First Division title in 1995–96, while on loan from Blackburn Rovers. He was signed by Newcastle United in 1997, and it was there that he began competing to be a first-choice Premier League goalkeeper. Given was part of the teams who came runners-up in the 1998 and 1999 FA Cup campaigns, and was named in the Premier League Team of the Season for 2001–02 and 2005–06. He played in the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup with Newcastle, and was involved in the club's title challenge in 2001–02. Although he submitted a transfer request during the 2000–01 campaign after losing his position in the starting lineup, it was denied, and Given went on to regain his place.

On 1 February 2009, Given transferred to Manchester City for £7 million on a four and a half-year-contract. While Given was there Manchester City qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history after finishing third in the Premier League. On 18 July 2011, Given joined Aston Villa for a fee believed to be around £3.5 million. He signed a five-year contract, meaning that he will be 40 when his contract expires.^[5]

Club career[link]

Early career[link]

Given's footballing career began at local amateur side Lifford Celtic where he shot to notoriety for conceding seven goals on his debut. He was propelled into the limelight when he played in the Football Association of Ireland's Junior Cup for Lifford Celtic in the semi-final in Dundalk. At the age of 14, Given's performances for the club attracted attention from Scottish side Celtic, the club he supports,^[6] and he was invited to train with their youth side during a pre-season tour of Ireland in 1991. Given signed for the club a year later, which was at the time managed by fellow Irishman Liam Brady. He spent two years at Celtic in the Scottish League, and despite being named to the substitutes bench for the Old Firm derby against Rangers on 1 January 1994,^[7] Given never made a first-team appearance.^[8] His performances for the youth team did, however, bring him to the attention of Blackburn Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish, and he signed for the English side on a free transfer in the summer of 1994.^[9][10]

Blackburn Rovers[link]

The season after Given's arrival saw Blackburn win the Premier League title and Given was unable to oust first-choice goalkeeper and England international Tim Flowers from the team.^[11][12] He made two loan moves to Swindon Town. Given acted as understudy during his first spell at the Wiltshire club but helped them start their Championship winning Division Two campaign during the 1995–96 season. He played in five games for the Swindon before returning to Blackburn at the end of 1995.^[8] Given was sent on loan again in January 1996, this time to Division One side Sunderland. Given kept 12 clean sheets during his 17 games for the club,^[13] and formed part of the team who won promotion to the Premier League as champions.^[10] His performances on loan again caught the eye of Kenny Dalglish, who had recently been appointed manager of Newcastle United. Given signed for the North-East club in the summer of 1997 for a fee of £1.5 million.

Newcastle United[link]

Given stretching during a Newcastle match

Given was one of the first signings of then-newly appointed manager Dalglish. Given made his debut in Newcastle's 2–1 home victory over Sheffield Wednesday on 9 August 1997 and immediately established himself in the first team, beating fellow goalkeepers Pavel Srníček, Shaka Hislop and Steve Harper to the position.^[12][14] Newcastle advanced to the final of the FA Cup, and Given played the whole match as the team were defeated 2–0 by league champions Arsenal.^[10][15] The club also progressed to the final the following year, but Given was replaced by Steve Harper as Newcastle lost 2–0 in the final, this time to Manchester United.^[16]

In November 1997, Given conceded a strange goal against Coventry City when, after collecting a cross, he rolled the ball out in preparation to make a long clearance. However, he had forgotten that Coventry striker Dion Dublin was still behind him, and Dublin quickly took advantage of the situation by rolling the ball into the empty net. The coincidence of the goalscorer's name quickly led to the popular word game among football fans that Given "is the only Irishman who doesn't know where Dublin is" and the goal itself is still regularly featured on lists compiled of bizarre goals.^[17][18]

Given submitted a written transfer request in December 2000, after failing to regain his place in the first-team from Steve Harper after a thigh injury had ruled him out of a match against Leeds United. Manager Sir Bobby Robson stated at the time: "A lot of clubs have a very good goalkeeper and one who stands by. I think we have two keepers—and Harper is proving that—who can play in the Premiership".^[19] The club rejected Given's request, which was then withdrawn by the goalkeeper, who later stated that his "intention was simply to express [his] frustration at being left out of the team,"^[19] and that he "never had any intention of actually leaving the club."^[20] An injury to Harper led to Given being recalled to the first team, and he kept his place for the rest of the season.^[10]

In the 2001–02 season, Given played in every Premier League match as Newcastle's previously unexpected title challenge ended in a fourth-place finish in the league. Given was selected in the PFA Team of the Year and Newcastle's league position meant that they would enter the qualifying stages of the UEFA Champions League the following season.^[21][22]

During the summer he competed in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, but could not prevent the Republic of Ireland being eliminated by Spain after a penalty shoot-out.^[23]

Given warming up for Newcastle in 2007

Given again found himself competing with Steve Harper during the following season. After a 5–0 qualifying round win, Newcastle progressed to the group stages of the Champions League. He played in the first three group matches, all of which Newcastle lost.^[24][25][26] Given found himself out of the team for the next two games, as Harper replaced him in goal.^[27][28] Given returned for the final group match against Feyenoord in the Netherlands, and Newcastle's 3–2 win meant that they qualified for the second round.^[29][30][31] Internazionale scored four times past Given as Newcastle lost 1–4 in their opening match in the second group stage.^[32] Newcastle conceded a further three times away to Barcelona,^[33] beat Bayer Leverkusen at home and in Germany,^[34][35] and drew with Inter at San Siro, however a 2–0 loss at home against Barcelona meant that the club finished third in their group and failed to qualify for the knockout stages. Given played every game in the second round.^[36] Given played all 38 league games for the club, as well as his 12 European appearances, as the team finished in third place in the Premier League, meaning the club would enter the Champions League qualifying round in 2003–04.^[10]

Having finished third in the league in May 2003, Given and Newcastle lost 4–3 on penalties to Partizan Belgrade early in the 2003–04 season, meaning that Newcastle failed to reach the group stages of the Champions League. The club instead qualified for the UEFA Cup, where they reached the semi-finals. A fifth-place finish in the league meant that the club qualified for the following season's UEFA Cup competition. Given played in every one of the club's league matches for a third successive season, as well as all 13 European games.^[37] The following year saw Graeme Souness replace Sir Bobby Robson as Newcastle manager after an early spell of poor form. Given overtook Alan Shearer as having played in the most European matches for the club on 16 September 2004 in a game against Bnei Sakhnin, and Given's 12 European and 3 FA Cup appearances helped Newcastle reach the UEFA Cup quarter-final and the FA Cup semi-final. Given missed two Premier League games as the club finished in 14th place.^[10][38]

Although the club entered the Intertoto Cup in 2005–06, a defeat by Spanish club Deportivo de La Coruña meant that they did not qualify for further European competition that season. Given played in all of the club's league matches as they finished in seventh position and he signed a new five-year contract with the club in the summer. His performances for Newcastle led to Given being named in the Premier League's Team of the Season. Given played in all of the club's FA Cup games as they reached the quarter-finals, and captained the team for three games during Alan Shearer's absence.^[10][39]

On 17 September 2006, Given suffered a one-centimeter tear in his bowel after a tackle by West Ham United striker Marlon Harewood. Doctors likened the injury to one more likely to happen in a car crash.^[40] Then-manager Glenn Roeder signed ex-Newcastle veteran Srníček as cover for Harper,^[41] and youth goalkeeper Tim Krul played a full match in Newcastle's 0–1 UEFA Cup win at Palermo on 2 November. Given returned on 18 November for Newcastle's 1–1 Premier League draw at Arsenal, and ended the season with 22 league appearances as the club finished in 13th place, and reached the last 16 of the UEFA Cup. Given did make his 400th appearance for the club during the season, however, in a New Year's Day match.^[10][42] Given's 2007–08 season was prematurely ended by injury in February when he had an occurrence of an old groin injury in the game with Manchester United.^[43]

The opening months of Newcastle's 2008–09 season were blighted by ownership and managerial turmoil, as well as numerous injury problems. This manifested itself on the pitch as the club struggled to direct itself clear of the relegation zone. On 2 January 2009, following the 5–1 defeat at home against Liverpool, the player's lawyer released a statement saying that his client was "considering his future" at Newcastle,^[44] and requested permission to talk to representatives of Manchester City on 28 January after the club made a bid of £5 million which was subsequently rejected.^[45] Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear had already stated that the club was "not interested at all in selling him",^[44] and described the amount on offer for Given as "insulting".^[46] However, on 30 January, it was reported that Newcastle had given permission for Given to enter talks with his suitors.^[47] After a transfer fee initially reported to be around £8 million was agreed between the clubs, Given signed for Manchester City on 1 February, with the transfer window set to close the following day. The news was disappointing for Newcastle fans who felt that Given left the club in a poor situation with many thinking that had Given delayed his decision to leave until the summer then Newcastle would have subsequently survived relegation to the Coca-Cola Championship because Given was such a fantastic goal keeper who could have stopped many of the goals that the Toon conceded towards the end of the dreadful campaign.^[48] Although the fee for Given was expected to be around £8 million, in February 2009 Newcastle United Managing Director Derek Llambias revealed at a supporters panel meeting that Given had been sold for an initial £5.9 million.^[49] Given was 34 games away from breaking Newcastle United's appearance record held by Jimmy Lawrence.

Manchester City[link]

Shay Given playing for Manchester City

On 1 February 2009 Given signed with Manchester City on a four-half-year-contract for £7 million.^[50] He was formally paraded as a Manchester City player on 5 February 2009, and was assigned squad number 37. In the subsequent press conference, he criticised Newcastle's management for not trying hard enough to keep him at the club. He also said that "By coming here I thought I could be at a club that is challenging for honours. I didn't want to finish my career regretting not taking up this offer."^[51][52] Given kept a clean sheet in a man of the match performance in his debut, a 1–0 win against Middlesbrough on 7 February.^[53] With Joe Hart leaving the club on loan, Given was given the squad number 1 for the 2009–2010 season. He made his 400th League appearance on 5 October 2009 against Aston Villa.^[54] On 5 December 2009 he made an outstanding penalty save from Frank Lampard to deny Chelsea an equalising goal. City went on to win 2–1.^[55] The same month, Daily Telegraph football correspondent Henry Winter named Given as Premier League Goalkeeper of the Noughties.^[56] While team captain Kolo Touré was on international duty, Given was given the captain's armband by manager Roberto Mancini, who described the Donegal-born player as "one of the five best goalkeepers in the world".^[57] He dislocated his shoulder during a match against Arsenal on 24 April, ruling him out for the rest of the season.^[58] On 14 August 2010, Given was dropped from the Manchester City starting XI for their opening league game against Tottenham and replaced by Joe Hart.

Aston Villa[link]

On 18 July 2011, Given joined Aston Villa for a fee believed to be around £3.5 million.^[59] He signed a five-year contract, meaning that he will be 40 when his contract expires.^[60] Given made his Villa debut in a pre-season friendly victory over Walsall on 21 July. He was substituted at half time for Andy Marshall, keeping a clean sheet as the score was 2–0 to Villa. ^[61] Given kept another clean sheet on 27 July 2011 in the 2011 Barclays Asia Trophy in Hong Kong in which Aston Villa beat Blackburn 1–0. This was his second clean sheet in two appearances for Aston Villa. On 13 August 2011, Shay played his first Premier League match for Aston Villa. They played Fulham in a 0–0 draw which means Shay kept his first clean sheet for Aston Villa in his first start for them. ^[62] In September 2011, Given was reunited with Terry Gennoe at Aston Villa. After four years out of the game, Gennoe was named as the new first team goalkeeping coach, replacing Rafa Gonzalez. He had previously coached Given at Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United. ^[63] On 3 December, Given suffered a torn hamstring, leaving him out of the team until January.

International career[link]

Although he did not become a regular first team player for Blackburn Rovers, Given's performances while on loan at Swindon and Sunderland led to him being called up to the Republic of Ireland squad in 1996. He made his debut for the national team on 27 March 1996, in a game against Russia,^[64][65] and although Ireland failed to qualify for the 1998 FIFA World Cup or UEFA Euro 2000, Given had established himself as first-choice goalkeeper by 2002, and played in all of his nation's games at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. With draws against Cameroon and Germany and a 3–0 win against Saudi Arabia,^[66][67][68] the team reached the second round of the competition.^[69] Meeting Spain in the knockout round, Ireland forced penalties with the score at 1–1 at the end of extra time. Three missed penalties for Ireland ended their participation in the tournament, and Spain progressed to the next round.^[23]

Given was part of the team for most of the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign; however a draw with Switzerland meant Ireland failed to qualify for the finals of the competition in Germany. He equalled Packie Bonner's record of 80 caps against Slovakia on 28 March 2007. Given obtained his 100th cap against Montenegro at Croke Park, Dublin on 14 October 2009 in a 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying game. On 18 November 2009, the Republic of Ireland were controversially denied passage to the 2010 FIFA World Cup by France. Ireland were eliminated by a goal scored by William Gallas.^[64]

Given was part of the team that secured qualification for UEFA Euro 2012 with an unprecedented 5–1 aggregate play-off win over their opponents.^[70]

Given is the most capped Republic of Ireland player as he holds 120 caps.^[71] He gives all his international playing fees to charity.^[72]

Personal life[link]

Given married Jane Cunningham in Hexham, England, in a Catholic ceremony in 2001. The couple received a Papal Blessing from His Holiness Pope John Paul II, himself an amateur goalkeeper in his youth.^[73] They have two children: a boy, Shayne, born in 2004, and a girl, Sienna, born in 2007.^[74] In 2006 Given was awarded the Freedom of County Donegal in a ceremony in his home town, Lifford.^[10]

Given has also helped organize several successful 'Fashion Kicks' fundraising events, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support.^[75] His mother died of cancer when he was five, so he has continually tried to raise money as it is an issue close to him.^[76]

On 27 November 2011 Shay was brought to tears during a minute of silence for former team-mate and personal friend Gary Speed after he took his own life the day before Aston Villa met Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

Career statistics[link]

Club[link]

As of 19:25, 13 May 2012.^[77]

National team[link]

^[78]