with Nicky Weaver
The goalkeeper’s lot is not an easy one. You only have one potential spot in the team rather than the multitude that are open to the rest of your teammates. Even if you play a blinder, you are rarely the hero but rather you’re simply doing what’s expected of you. If you make a mistake, the buck stops with you, even if the ball didn’t. And, should you pick up an injury, the consequences are far greater for you than any outfielder because once the other guy is between the sticks, he takes some shifting. Oh, and they keep changing the balls to make it easier for strikers to bend them, shape them, any way they want them. With all that going on, it’s a wonder Nicky Weaver manages to stay so cheerful.
Nonetheless, like most goalkeepers, Weaver has a sunny disposition, well used to brushing off the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as he is. He is one of those players with a proper sense of perspective, a real fan at heart and somebody who realises that, for all its ups and downs, there aren’t many better jobs on the market than that of professional footballer. He’s been doing it for a while now too.
“I grew up in Sheffield and my family are still based there. When I played for Sheffield Wednesday, that was great as they were the team I supported as a boy. I left home at 16 and returned at 30! They are a huge club – I remember as a kid going to a game on Boxing Day against Liverpool and there were 53,000 there. They are struggling at the moment and they’re still getting crowds of about 22,000, but if they were at the top of the Championship, they would be getting 30,000. It is a massive club but it’s been mismanaged over the years. I am sure they will be back one day, they’re too big not to.
“When I was growing up, my heroes at Wednesday were Chris Waddle and David Hirst, but Peter Schmeichel was my goalkeeping hero. When I got serious about my football in my early teens he was at his best and his style was just so different. From about the age of 10 I was a goalkeeper. I did play outfield but the keeper in our team kept getting chipped because he was so small! I went in goal and that was it! I got picked up by Mansfield Town and that started my career off.
“I was in the second year of my apprenticeship at Mansfield and we played Manchester City in a reserve game. I don’t even know why we were in the league we were in, as we played against the likes of Aston Villa and some other very big clubs. In the game against City, I had a decent game and they just kept watching me after that. At the end of that season, I signed for them. It was amazing really, to be plucked from reserve team football to go to a big club like City”.
Nicky was soon in the City side, coming into the team in the 1998/99 season when City have plunged to the third tier of English football, a catastrophic low made all the worse by the success of United across the city. Nicky’s arrival coincided with a rise in the club’s fortunes, the goalkeeper making a huge contribution by posting a club record of 26 clean sheets as they began the climb back through the divisions.
“It was still a record up until a couple of seasons ago when Joe Hart broke it. He actually broke the record in the FA Cup Final when they beat Stoke and that season they had also been playing in Europe, so they had played quite a number of games. I was not that disappointed to lose the record, honest! It was something nice to have but like all records, they are there to be broken.
“When I signed they were in the Championship as it is now but they soon got relegated and then I started playing in the first team. Although we were in the third tier of English football there were still 30,000 people watching every weekend. It was a great start for me and then we got promotion that season and the following season we got promoted again to the Premiership, so my first two seasons finished up with us getting promotion each time. Not a bad start to my career!”
That first promotion was on a knife edge, won only via the play-offs and a nerve shredding final against Gillingham that went to penalties. Nicky saved the crucial kick and entered City folklore, both for the save and his celebration.
“The celebration has caused me nothing but embarrassment ever since! I still get asked about it all the time. I was only 20 and it was my first season, so I did not know any better. I did not realise what the score on penalties was because you are concentrating so much on saving them. All I remember was me asking the linesman, ‘If I save this do we win?’ and he said ‘Yes’. When I saved it, I waved the lads on and then started running and didn’t really stop! I did not want it to end so I carried on and then we had a mass pile up in the middle and I almost died of exhaustion underneath everyone! It is only when you look back now you realise how good it was to be a part of a day like that.
“If I am ever in Manchester the fans always have nice things to say to me and always want to talk about that game at Wembley. Every City fan over the age of 20 can remember it as it was a big turning point in the clubs history. I was there for ten years, the first ten years of my adult life so I really grew up there on and off the pitch.
“That Wembley win was a vital day in the club’s history when you think about it, but to be honest, I was so young that you just take it in your stride and get on with it. It is only when you look back that you realise how big that game was. It was the start of the journey that culminated in Aguero scoring that goal that won them the Premiership. I do not know what would have happened if they had not gone up that day at Wembley. To stay another year in that division, the financial side of it, I honestly don’t know what would have happened. It’s a question that cannot really be answered but everyone is aware of how important that game was in the club’s recent history.
“We had great success under Joe Royle, back to back promotions. We probably went up to the Premiership too early and got relegated and then big Joe got sacked and Kevin Keegan came in. We won the Championship at a canter under him, we won promotion and the title with games to spare. Things were just different under Keegan. We had financial backing that was not really there before, so we signed some big players. The thing about Kevin was he could sign a player, people wanted to come and play for him. That was his first job since leaving the England post, so at the time, he was a really high profile manager. We went from having a squad of regular lads to having a squad that included Nicolas Anelka, Peter Schmeichel, Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman.
“Doing that can cause problems because the lads who have got the club to where they are and have done all the hard work suddenly find themselves out of the team and replaced by a player who is on massive money. There was no animosity to be honest, but you could see how a situation like that could cause problems. If you look at the situation at Crystal Palace recently, Ian Holloway said that he regretted not sticking with the players that had got the cub promoted, so you have to get the balance right and in fairness Keegan did that and we were relatively successful.
“The football we played was very positive. I cannot remember how many we scored during that first season in the Championship but I think we broke a record. It was not uncommon for us to be scoring three or four goals every week. Most of the players he signed were attack minded players. It was a good time for the supporters. Unfortunately I was injured during a lot of that time.
“During that time we signed Schmeichel, then David Seaman and then David James. To work with those three goalkeepers and to see how good they were, but at the same time to see how different they all were, was a great experience. Peter was totally different to David Seaman, very single minded, almost selfish in his preparation, whilst David was completely at the opposite end of the scale, very relaxed, flicking his ponytail, chewing his gum. Despite their different approaches, both of them had the most amazing careers. Then David James came in. He should have been the greatest goalkeeper England has ever seen. The ability he had was simply breathtaking at times. He still had a very good career and played until he was 40. To work with three such fantastic goalkeepers, I consider myself very lucky”.
There was bad luck too for Nicky, notably on the injury front, injuries coming just as it looked as if he might make a place for himself on the international stage.
“Everyone was saying this and that about me but I never said anything myself. It was others who said I would play for England. I had just turned 23 and I got injured and I then played one game in three years. It did hamper me a lot and at one time it looked as if I would have to pack the game in aged 24, 25. To still be playing at 34 after all that, I count myself very fortunate. I don’t really think about what might have been. It happened to me and I just get on with it. I am just grateful to still be involved in the game.
“I have seen plenty of changes in my time in football. The balls get lighter and more slippery and they move a lot more. The pitches are quicker and the ball skips up off the surface more – it does not get any easier being a keeper! The biggest change in my lifetime was the back pass rule. I was lucky enough that I was about 13 or 14 when the rule came in so it did not really affect me, but you speak to people like Jim Leighton, and keepers who are in their late thirties, it was a massive deal at the time as they suddenly had to start kicking the ball with both feet and kicking a moving ball off the floor. I think the microscope is on the goalkeepers a lot more, but that is just football in general. Sky Sports News is on 24 hours a day and there are 25 cameras at every game and all that sort of thing. Even then, the principles of goalkeeping remain the same. The position has just evolved alongside the game itself.
“The principles of the game are something that Jim Leighton is very strong on. I can obviously remember Jim playing when I was a kid and now I really enjoy working with him as he is a really nice guy and an absolute legend in these parts. I don’t think you ever stop learning, you are always striving to be better. The day you stop learning is maybe the time to call it a day. All the goalkeepers get on well here. Jim, Jamie, Danny and myself, we all work well together, but that is the same at every club. It has to be that way and it is all I have ever known. At every club there are two or three keepers vying for the one spot. Every keeper wants to play. Jamie wants to play and he is number one at the minute. It’s Jim’s job to make sure we all remain at the top of our games”.
Danny Rogers is a young man highly rated in the game. As somebody who has been through that kind of scrutiny himself, how hard does Nicky think it is foryoung ‘keeper to make it in the game?
“When I was a youngster at Mansfield playing in the reserves, you were playing against men. The U20 league is more of a progression of the youth league. It is hard because there are not a lot of games and there might be two or three keepers who need a game. Even if one of the older keepers gets injured, it is quite common for clubs to go out and get one in on loan because managers want experience. To get that experience, you need to go and play somewhere. It can be quite a lonely place for young keepers coming through. I was quite lucky because I did not really have any experience, yet Joe Royle still threw me in. I was playing regularly for City at the age of 19 and by the time was 21, I had played about 100 games and was relatively experienced. Not many managers will do that. The key is finding a manager who thinks you are good enough”.
Even the very best goalkeepers can come under fire sometimes, so what does Nicky make of the way one of his successors at Manchester City, Joe Hart, is getting roundly criticised at present?
“City bought Joe Hart from Shrewsbury and I played with him for a season. They paid about £600,000 for him which was a lot of money for a young boy but a lot of clubs were watching him and you could see the potential he had although you could not see him turning into the world class keeper that he has and becoming the undisputed England number one. He has had a little dip in form but he has never let his county down. Most of the goals he let in for City and is getting slated for were not howlers. They were just ones he perhaps should have done a bit better with. I have no doubt he will be England’s number one for years and years to come and, barring injury, he could land up with an unbelievable number of caps.
“The lack of competition he faces is a concern, it is more bizarre than anything else. England has always had a good history of goalkeepers but the problem is there are not many playing in the Premier League. John Ruddy is at Norwich, Ben Foster is at West Brom, Robert Green is playing in the Championship and Fraser Forster is playing up here. Instead of having eight or nine to choose from, there are really only three or four. I just find it odd the goalkeepers are not there and the number of foreign players over here must have something to do with it.
“It’s funny that the best ‘keeper is at City when you think how much they’ve spent on foreign players! The game has changed in the respect that you can get these billionaires coming in and they can completely change the fortunes of a club. Suddenly with the financial backing they can become a big club and challenge for honours.This is what has happened at Chelsea and also at City. I would say that the infrastructure was already in place; the fanbase is there, they have a fantastic stadium, they are building a new training ground which will probably be up there with the very best in the world. I have only been away from Manchester City for six years but it is not the same club as I left”.
From one big City club to another and now he is here in Aberdeen, Nicky is relishing the latest chapter in a career that could have been finished a long time ago but for his determination to come through his injury problems.
“I very nearly packed the game in. People say they nearly packed it in, but I was very, very close to calling it a day. I had to go over to America five times and I have had six operations on my knee, so I am under no illusions as to how lucky I am still to be playing. Obviously I would rather be playing in the first team, but I try and make the most of it and I am enjoying it. When you have been out injured for a long time, you realise how lucky you are to be doing what you are doing and, once you retire, you are retired for a long time then so I wanted to continue as long as I can.
“Aberdeen is a proper football club. I spoke to the manager at length a couple of times over the summer and he had nothing but praise for the club. From the moment I got here until now, everyone has bent over backwards to make me feel welcome. It is a very well run football club, it is a big club, a club steeped in history, and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here. We are a striving for the same things and it looks like the good times could be just around the corner”.
“Aberdeen is a proper football club. I spoke to the manager at length a couple of times over the summer and he had nothing but praise for the club. From the moment I got here until now, everyone has bent over backwards to make me feel welcome. It is a very well run football club, it is a big club, a club steeped in history, and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here. We are a striving for the same things and it looks like the good times could be just around the corner”.
“Aberdeen is a proper football club. I spoke to the manager at length a couple of times over the summer and he had nothing but praise for the club. From the moment I got here until now, everyone has bent over backwards to make me feel welcome. It is a very well run football club, it is a big club, a club steeped in history, and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here. We are a striving for the same things and it looks like the good times could be just around the corner”.
