Less than three years after he started for Crystal Palace in the playoff final win that got the London club to the Premier League, Wembley is notionally the target again for Owen Garvan. In reality neither the Irish man nor his Colchester United team-mates will be looking much beyond lunchtime tomorrow when Tottenham come to town.
Garvan, now 27, seemed set at one stage to follow in the footsteps of grandfather and uncle, Con and Mick Martin, by playing for Ireland, is adamant United can spring a surprise. The formbook suggests otherwise but the Dubliner, who always had a confident streak, is undeterred.
“I’ve played against these sorts of players before, I know what we’re up against and I know how nervous they will be coming into the game because they know they’ll be under a lot of scrutiny if they don’t roll us over with ease. That’s the belief that I have. I know not a lot of other people have it but it’s the way I am.”
After Roy Keane let him leave Ipswich, Garvan was going well at Palace and actually made his Premier league debut against Tottenham but an exchange with Ian Holloway soon after that game led to him being left out of the Premier League squad for 2013/14.
“When the next manager came in he wasn’t able to pick me because the last man hadn’t put me in the squad,” he says.
‘Soul-destroying’
“It was a vicious circle; soul-destroying because once you’re not in that 25-man squad you know you can’t play for that club for four months and if you’re injured in January then all of a sudden the whole season is gone and people start to forget about you.
He struggled a little after his contract ran out last summer, having trials at a few clubs, including back at Ipswich before a former youth coach at that club, Tony Humes, called from Colchester, where he was then manager.
“It was tough,” he admits. “If I’m honest I kind of expected people to want to sign me because of the way I’d played in the past but I don’t think that’s the case now; clubs want you to come in on trial, to do pre-season with them . . .
“The season was starting and I didn’t have a club; I was getting a bit nervous . . . In the end I was happy to sign because I just wanted to play football; that’s what I enjoy.”
Colchester, though, haven’t won in the league since October and beating Charlton in the last round was the best day the club has had in a while.
Tottenham will be a tougher challenge, he knows, but Garvan is anxious to remind the wider world of what he can do.
“TV and you’re playing top opposition, a lot of people watching. I want to do well, I want to impress . . .”
