Steve Harper Day

While Steve Harper was at Newcastle United for the first season of squad numbers, 1993-94, after joining from Seaham Red Star, it wasn’t until 1994-95 that he was allocated his own digits.

Initially given 32, he moved to 29 for 1996-97 and then two years later his status as first reserve to Shay Given was reflected in him being assigned number 13.

The lot of a backup goalkeeper can be a frustrating one when you’re behind a top performer who never gets injured – after playing in the 3-1 win over Coventry City on January 13, 2001, Harper would not play another Premier League game for almost four years.

In the summer of 2003, Harper sought to shake things up – perhaps the only surprise is that it took that long for the notion of his number being the cause of such bad luck to raise its head.

With right-back Andy Griffin having switched from number 12 to 2 – vacant since the departure of Warren Barton – Harper decided to shift down slightly.

In local media reports, he was quoted as saying, “I’m not superstitious but my family and friends have said that I should change my number – and I’m getting nearer the No. 1!”.

Incidentally, the same report noted that the Toon were being linked with Patrick Kluivert – he would move to St James’ Park a year later. For Harper, however, there was to be no dramatic change in fortune – a third straight ever-present season followed for Given.

Harper did play twice in the league in 2004-05 before Given racked up another perfect 38 in 2005-06. It wasn’t that Harper was necessarily bad; he just wasn’t getting an opportunity to shine.

However, an extended spell on the sidelines for his Irish colleague in 2006-07 meant that the number 12 saw action in 18 league games and 25 in total.

In that regard, it seems strange that, in the summer of 2007, he reversed the move of four years earlier and moved back to 13. It wasn’t as if he was doing it to accommodate anyone who wanted 12, either – the shirt remained vacant in 2007-08 before being taken by Sébastien Bassong for 2008-09.

Harper’s last game wearing 12 had been the final match of 2006-07 against Blackburn Rovers, when he donned the new 2007-08 strip and the incoming Premier League font; for one of his first outings back in 13 he had the sky-blue Newcastle outfield away shirt.

With Celtic visiting St James’ Park for a friendly in late July, Newcastle midfielder Nicky Butt suffered a late injury. All of the outfield subs had been brought on and so they briefly played with ten men while a special shirt was printed for Harper to wear.

He played up front and even had an involvement in the late James Milner goal that gave Newcastle a 4-1 win.

“It was good to get on up front and something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said, “I played centre-forward until I was 17, not that you could tell against Celtic, but it shows the situation here.

“In pre-season, though, you have to take precautions, and when Butty hurt his knee I looked along the bench and there was nobody left to come on apart from myself and Tim Krul.

“We needed somebody to play outfield for a time and it was me who got the shout. I enjoyed it.”

After Given joined Manchester City in 2009, Harper moved to the number 1 that had been vacated and there was one last change in his final season with the club, 2012-13. Having been usurped by Krul, who was rewarded with 1, Harper changed to 37 in recognition of his age at the time.

He concluded his career with spells wearing 22 for Hull City and 33 for Sunderland.