Earlier this year, the 'Phoenix' magazine ran a spoof movie poster which all at once referenced a hero who stubbornly refused to be shackled and another who seemed to almost sado-masochistically revel in his manacles.

"Shay -- the cult hero of a downtrodden people," the mock billboard screamed, as Shay Given's features merged with those of Che Guevara. "One man's struggle to resist American tyranny. What will become of his people when he's gone?"

It was, we chuckled as we read, "the story of a glorious failure". Oh how we chuckled. And then, almost as innately, sighed sadly.

For Given's struggle was attaining all the signs of a scripted descent into magnificent malfunction; and he seemed unable to apply the brakes to a career accelerating into a nebulous neverland.

Now, as he resides within the confines of one of the world's richest clubs, Given's status as one of the best netminders in the European game has survived the sullied final days of his tenure at Newcastle United.

And, with three crucial World Cup qualification matches imminent, in which his prowess is certain to influence the course of all encounters, Given may be poised to return to the world stage where his talents truly belong.

It would mark a fitting stage for one of Ireland's truly world-class performers, one who has spent too much of his career idling amongst mediocrity at club level while often scarcely escaping this trauma when called for international duty.

His career required the starkest of stimulants last January -- otherwise the story of Given would not just have represented a lack of fulfilment. It would have smacked of smugness and a willingness to wallow in the comfort zone. For all his time in solitary confinement, we wondered whether he was possessed of the single-mindedness to cut loose from the culture of complacency in which he was entombed.

Ironically, it was an individual performance of typical defiance which enabled him to see the light, telling him it was time to shrug off the patronising chorus that cast him as merely a "loyal servant", as if he were not capable or not willing to seek anything more than the barest minimum from his career.

Goalkeepers are the gate-keepers of all the collective turmoil that can be visited upon the institution they strive to defend; a striker may be absolved by inadequate service, a midfielder can hide in the wings, a defender may defer responsibility.

But the brave, proud, selfless goalkeeper, as the last line of defence, is utterly exposed to the harsh horrors when all around him subsides like the collapsing set of a Buster Keaton movie.

And so we watched last December as Given stood as the last line of defence against a Liverpool side displaying the altogether more pleasurable side of their schizophrenic character.

Onslaught

Liverpool were as graceful as leaves dancing on the wind that day; Newcastle as graceless as a drunk detaching himself from his trousers. As black and white were pummelled black and blue, Given was the only man who stood barrel-chested against the recurrent onslaught.

Even the boy in the dyke would have scoffed at the superfluity of Given's efforts.

Yet this proud product of Tir Chonaill, who splashes holy water in his goalmouth before every match, has never afforded himself the professional lapses so common in today's game of pock-marked beauty.

He had known other afternoons of farce with Newcastle but this one scarred like no other. Soon, word emerged from Michael Kennedy, the solicitor who he shares with Roy Keane, and who makes public pronouncements with about as much enthusiasm as Van Morrison.

Chris Hughton, then as now charged with husbanding the shipwreck that is Newcastle through the rapids, professed confidence that his fellow Irishman could never leave. Thousands of Geordies, accustomed to the deployment of blind faith, believed the same. Given played against Hull and, characteristically, allowed nothing beyond his myopic focus on performance to cloud his vision. Again, he was magnificently defiant. Again, it convinced him that the instinct to agitate for a move was a correct one.

Given, a devout man of faith who prays every day, was beginning to realise that, at 33, could no longer allow his career to drift so carelessly; he wasn't jealous of others making the most of moderate difficulty.

But he did owe it to himself to maximise the ability that in the past had attracted serious offers from those such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur who demonstrated little of the self-destructive elements of his current employers.

And yet, despite 12 years of sustained excellence -- injury and two separate, short-lived crises of confidence from two of his many managers -- there had not been any tangible sense that the courting of Given amounted to much more than an arch of the eyebrows and a casual raising of the hemline.

Then, as if in answer to his prayers, a suitor swooped and Given pitched up at Manchester City. Given had swapped a club of mis-fits, one possessed of a delusional sense of place where characters like Craig Bellamy are indulged for a club ... em, better to fast forward a tad.

The Manchester City project is possessed of more clarity now than when Given arrived, of that everyone can be certain; Given's signing by Mark Hughes a declaration that foundations were required before the frippery of Robinho et al could be coddled.

Already this season, City's defensive solidity owes much to Given's sparkling interventions against Blackburn and, last weekend, against Portsmouth. His is now a resourceful, re-assuring presence rather than the one at Newcastle that was taken for granted.

"To see how important a top goalkeeper can be, I think you only have to look at what happened to Newcastle after he left last season," says Joe Corrigan, a Maine Road legend between the sticks from 1967-83 and now the club's goalkeeping coach.

"The club was in turmoil anyway, but when you see a player of Shay's quality and stature leave, and what happened afterwards, you realise what an important brick he was in their structure.

"On the other hand, City can only gain from his ability and experience. He is not the tallest 'keeper, which makes it harder for him, but he has fantastic knowledge and a great reading of the game.

"He has played in the Premier League for a long time, and that is the hardest league in the world for a goalkeeper because everything you do is under intense scrutiny from the TV cameras.

"He has worked hard at his game. Kicking used to be a weakness, but he worked at it to the point that he is now very competent. Handling crosses is one area where he has struggled in the past, but there is no footballer without a weakness or two, and I think he is actually a lot better than some of the bigger 'keepers."

Given's role as the crucial support beam in successive Ireland teams has equally only been emphasised whenever he has been absent; so often, the walls have come tumbling down, as they did so spectacularly three years ago in Cyprus.

Determination

Given's unfailing modesty subsequently sought sympathy for that night's hapless victim Paddy Kenny but it would be foolhardy to underestimate his fierce determination to be successful in green.

The image of Given kicking an Amsterdam carousel after being dropped in preference for Dean Kiely in Ireland's last successful qualification campaign some eight years ago burns brightly.

He fought his way back and has twice sent Kiely into retirement. His three favourite matches in green are the final three matches that secured that 2002 World Cup qualification; not surprisingly, he played a huge role in all three, his remarkable saves at home to Iran in the play-offs purging the myth that Roy Keane was the sole reason Ireland sallied forth to Japan and Korea.

Beneath the smiling, boyish exterior lies a burning will to succeed -- at 33, he is young in goalkeeping terms but with so many unfulfilled years behind him for club and country, he is impatient for success. Because Shay Given now knows that time is probably the only thing he has allowed to slip through his fingers during a career in which he has played the loyal servant for far too long.

The time for glorious failure is past. Now it is time for Given to grab overdue glory with both hands.

- David Kelly