Shay: Any Given Saturday: The Autobiography Hardcover – January 1, 2017

I loved the intensity of the opening which the author even refers to by chapter 2. It is a great read that takes you behind the scenes and in to the dressing rooms of Premier League and International soccer.

Great book and great insight into an amazing keeper.

Great honest book

Shay is imo one of the premier league's all time greatest GK's and a Toon legend, treated poorly by the Ashley regime after such dedicated service for the club.This book is great, honest and at times amusing, Shay is an Irish legend, I can claim plastic paddy status as my grandfather was Irish and you get a genuine insight into the Ireland set up as well as the various managers he worked for at the Toon, his comments about Sir Bobby are indeed heartwarming.I've read numerous newcastle players books and this is up there with the best. God bless Given, he like myself lost his mother to the big C at the age of 4 yrs old so I feel a genuine kinship to Shay, he's a strong character and an inspiration ❤

At 390 pages, with 106 colour photographs this is a very comprehensive read. It covers Shay’s life & passion for a game he clearly loves. The book takes us from his humble beginnings in Ireland where he and his siblings helped their single parent father in the fields, right through his English Premier League career & his distinguished service for the Republic of Ireland national team, for which he was capped no less than 134 times. The descriptions of his humble early life are touching, particularly the tragic loss of his mum to cancer when he was only four years old, and she was forty-one. This clearly had a huge influence on the young Shay, and indeed he postulates the probable certainty this event influenced his entire life, even to this day. He’s not afraid to admit he sought psychiatric help more than once during his career, aware of the stigma still sadly attached to mental health issues, and very prescient when it comes to today’s world of sport science and motivation. Well done for that. The book contains the usual descriptions of dressing room antics, off duty drinking, famous names, and an inside look at the style of various great managers - and some who were not so great - often with hilarious results. Coaching is mentioned a lot; how, who, where, and what style, which is interesting for any perspective goalkeeper. The book is necessarily quite long because it takes in the international career and English Premier League career of a fine, world class goalkeeper, but it maintains interest throughout. Shay Given comes across as a lovely chap, fair, tough, talented, with a great deal of modesty & humility. A great read, well done, and credit also to Chris Brereton.

i have read 4 biographies of footballers associated with Newcastle United over the holiday period Terry Mac , Shay Givens, Craig Bellamy and Paul Ferris , and they were all typical and boringly consistent with professional footballers highs and lows of the beautiful game, the exception was Paul Ferris autobiography which was well written and interesting, revealing the issues of growing up in Belfast during the troubles in Northern Ireland and the pain of injury that faltered a potentially brilliant career, being a NUFC follower I can remember being told he was as good as Gascoinge in his early days and tragically a troublesome injury curtailed any advancement he could make.His book far outshone the other three books

One of those books which kept me interested the whole way through and was a good mix of personal thoughts, achievements and insights into the goings on within football clubs. It was also laced with anecdotes and humour.

As a fellow Irishman I really enjoyed reading about Shay's early days growing up in Lifford, Co Donegal. He gives very honest account of his career and life and was thoroughly enjoyable to read. The only small issue I had is having gotten to the end of the book I was looking forward to looking at the pictures and put faces to names from the story. Unfortunately this kindle book did not have the pictures with it. I've no idea why as all other books I've purchased from the Kindle store have contained pictures.