Sunderland supporters are still coming to terms with seeing Given in black and white – shorts and socks, if not shirt, that is. He earned a First Division championship medal and a professional reputation which, ironically, was to lead him to Tyneside.Peter Reid tried to buy him from Blackburn last season but when Given’s contract ended in the summer he chose instead to join the manager who groomed him as Tim Flowers’ understudy at Ewood Park It has proved to be a wise decision. His goalkeeping gymnastics helped Sunderland to the Premiership. In 17 matches he kept 12 clean sheets, two more than he has managed in 32 league and cup games thus far into his Newcastle career.
They took the Irishman to their hearts in the three months he spent at Roker. I’ll have to see it now.”Perhaps the BBC could oblige on Saturday morning before Given boards the bus for Wembley. The description of Montgomery diving to keep out Trevor Cherry’s header and then rising to push Peter Lorimer’s follow-up shot on to the bar met with a blank look Given shook his head “No,” he said, “I’ve never seen it I wasn’t around in 1973 I was born in ‘76 I haven’t even heard about it before. While on loan to Sunderland from Blackburn Rovers two seasons ago, Given equalled Jimmy Montgomery’s club record feat of keeping clean sheets in seven successive games at the late Roker Park.
Whether he can match Montgomery’s celebrated Cup final double save remains to be seen – as, indeed, does the original, by the young man from Donegal.”What save?” Given said as he donned his gloves for Friday-morning training. He should, at least, manage to get his Wembley team sheet past Sir John Hall – and with Alan Shearer’s name on it.. Simon Turnbull
meets a young keeper
who has learnt tocount his blessingsIT JUST so happens that Shay Given, the last line of the Newcastle defence at Wembley on Saturday, holds a place in the record books alongside the goalkeeper who performed FA Cup final heroics for Sunderland in 1973. He had also crossed playing paths with the man who will lead out Newcastle at Wembley on Saturday.”Aye,” Simpson mused, “Kenny was a boy at Celtic when I was there I played in a few matches with him before I retired He was always highly thought of by Jock and the staff You could see there was a player there.
It was just a matter of the boy developing.”Now, for Kenny Dalglish, it is a matter of developing the kind of trophy- winning touch Newcastle United possessed in Ronnie Simpson’s time at St James’ Park. Simpson junior, by the time he finally hung up his goalkeeping jersey, at the age of 40 in 1970, had earned a place in the pantheon of Parkhead greats. “It was a scrummage trying to get them when the final whistle blew but we managed it in the end.”The previous month, in April 1967, Simpson had finally played for his country. At the age of 36 he made his Scotland debut – in the team that famously beat England 3-2 at Wembley. In doing so, he followed in the stud-marks of his father, Jimmy, who played centre-half for Scotland in the 1930s Simpson senior was an idol at Ibrox. They have been lionised ever since as the Lisbon Lions, though some of them were toothless. In addition to keeping goal, it was Simpson’s job to keep the false teeth in a spare cap in the net “There were a few of us who had them,” he recalled.
