The players of Manchester United may not be the only ones on the double-take tomorrow afternoon. When the masses sit down to watch the FA Cup Final, a fair proportion of the audience will take one look at the man in the goalkeeper's jersey of Newcastle United and say: "Ah, Shay Given." Then they will look a little closer and say: "It's not Shay Given, is it?"
Unless something dramatic occurs in training today or tomorrow morning, the answer will be "No." For the man keeping the Newcastle goal will be Steve Harper. You will be excused a "who?" at this point because this will only be Harper's eighth start for Newcastle in seven years. It could be said his moment has been a long time coming.
Harper certainly thinks so. After spending so long in the shadows he was unprepared to sign a new three-year contract offered at Christmas until last week, when he finally felt assured that he was regarded as Newcastle's number one - or at least a legitimate contender. Considering he first signed professional forms in July 1993, then waited five years for his debut, he was entitled to the doubt and the wait.
In the time between the contract offer and last week's signature, Harper turned 24. Far from being the young kid coming through he is actually 13 months older than Given. With the Irishman established at St James' Park, first under Kenny Dalglish and then Ruud Gullit, and with Harper having impressed sufficiently onloan at Huddersfield Town last season for the Yorkshire club to want to buy him, Harper's ambivalence about his future on Tyneside was justifiable.
Harper wanted first-team action but Newcastle would not sell, even though Given's position was unquestioned under Dalglish, who then signed the Frenchman Lionel Perez on a free from Sunderland last summer. The message Harper was receiving was that he was number three. Again.
It had often been that way since he stepped up from Newcastle's juniors with Pavel Srnicek, Tommy Wright, Mike Hooper and Shaka Hislop all in front of him. While learning his trade Harper never complained, and when informed last season that he was being loaned out to a First Division club he was excited at the prospect. Then he found out it was Huddersfield - and they were bottom of the table.
Yet he describes the temporary move as a "fantastic experience". "I had 15 games for Hartlepool and it was a big thing for me. We only lost one. Then I got the call from Peter Jackson at Huddersfield and I learned a lot from the Third Division and a relegation battle. I learned to relax; before that I used to get very uptight. Sometimes when a player is thrown in they try and do too much. Now I just try to be neat and tidy."
Harper's neatness has coincided with a period of relative untidiness from Given, yet it was only on May Day against Middlesbrough - two games ago - that Harper appeared to have moved ahead of Given in Gullit's mind. His relationship with Given remains strong, though, despite a professional rivalry that sees one benefit from the other's mistakes. An added uncanny visual coincidence is that the two could pass for twins.
"We are very good friends," Harper said. "And you never wish mistakes on anybody. Shay is a top-class keeper and a proven international and whoever plays on Saturday will be supportive of the other. It's an unusual situation, but Shay has been brilliant."
Equal respect travels in the opposite direction and is fully warranted. Not only is Harper a fine goalkeeper, he has a solid nature that reflects his upbringing as the son of a miner in Easington Colliery. The pit may have gone, his father may have lost his job, but Harper still lives in the village on the North Sea coast. "A lot of people have left and only now is it starting to get back on its feet," he said of Easington.
In Brian Kidd-speak, that is where Harper gets his background and his heart from. It is also where he got his A-levels in geography and communications studies, useful attributes for a young man at a stadium the size and volume of Wembley.
