Shay Given is one of the most striking and legendary goalkeepers in the history of the English Premier League and the national team of Ireland. Very few goalkeepers in the world have remained the main ones in their club for 12 years. Offhand you can only remember the legendary forty-year-old goalkeeper of Kiev “Dynamo” Alexander Shovkovsky.
Legends childhood and youth
Given's real name is Shimus. By the way, this is a traditional Old Irish name. The legendary goalkeeper was born in 1976 in the small village of Lifford in a small but friendly family. This region did not like classic football. Such sports as rugby and Gaelic football were very popular, but our hero fell in love with English football since childhood.
Father put up with his son’s desire to play the ball more seriously and gave him to the section with the Lifford Celtic team. By the way, the name of the local FC for Neck Given had its own karma - the first professional club for him was precisely Celtic from Glasgow.
Initial career period
Given could not immediately become the main goalkeeper in a serious club. He had to spend two seasons on the bench at Celtic and Blackburn. The goalkeeper did not despair and constantly honed his skills in matches for youth squads.
The 1995/1996 season was very important for the Irish. It was in 1995 that Given Shay received his first game practice. Of course, it was about renting. In the clubs “Swindon Town” (League-2 champion) and “Sunderland” (victory in the Championship), he proved to be an excellent master. In general, Given played 22 matches during the season, in which he conceded 12 goals. The individual statistics of the goalkeeper speaks of 4 dry matches for Swindon and 12 matches for zero for Sunderland. For a 20-year-old guy, this was a very serious result.
Shay Given - The Forty Legend from Newcastle
A team from the north of England, although it won the English Premier League in the mid-1990s and participated in the group stage of the 1997/1998 Champions League in a quartet with the legendary Dynamo Lobanovsky, was never truly a grand English football.
Reliable game Given in many matches literally saved Newcastle from defeats or made it possible to win fights with a minimum score. The goalkeeper often made incredible saves when it seemed that the ball was about to fly into the goal of his team.
Footballer Given Shay is an era in the history of Newcastle. From 1997 to 2009, the goalkeeper played 463 matches as part of the team. On average, he lost 1.33 goals per game. Such statistics indicate that he has enough dry matches in his asset.
How was Shay able to achieve such success? First, hard work in training. Secondly, an important place in a successful goalkeeper game is always psychological stability. Of course, it is impossible to hold every match at a high level, but Shay Given, when he played for the “forty”, was so self-confident that even the players in the team were confident in the super reliability of their goalkeeper. Of course, the game qualities that were laid by nature also helped: jumping ability, high growth, excellent reaction (often took a penalty).
Personal life of the legend
Until a certain time, Neck had a successful career in the first place, so he got married only at the age of 25. The happy wife was Jane Cunningham. The couple has two children. Son Shay was born in 2004, and three years later her daughter Sienna was born. For the past 15 years, the couple has been living in a happy marriage and raising children. Very little information is known about Given's wife, because she is a non-public person.
The family respects old Irish traditions. The Catholic faith obligates as often as possible to attend church and adhere to maximum asceticism in everyday life. In this spirit, Shay Given and Jane Cunningham raise their children.
The Irish are a people who respect their traditions!