Craig Fagan Interview

By: Matt | April 3rd, 2009

In advance of the weekends massive clash with Pompey (I guess their all massive at this stage), we bring you this exclusive interview of Craig Fagan, from CITY Magazine.

CITY Magazine Interview

Raising the Bar – Hull City AFC’s Craig Fagan

He’s as chirpy and noisy off-the-field as he is competitive and aggressive on it. Craig Fagan always gives value-for-money. With that in mind, we caught up with the Tigers’ star for an exclusive interview about the club’s first season in the Barclays Premier League. The Birmingham-born striker joined City when they were in League One and made his debut against Tranmere. Then, he moved on to Derby County and helped them secure promotion to the top-flight. However, Fagan was unable to prevent The Rams crashing straight back into the Championship. By the end of a traumatic season for Derby, he’d re-joined the Tigers on loan and was celebrating another promotion to the Premier League. Who will ever forget that epic Play-Off final win against Bristol City when Fagan came on as a second half substitute to help secure a 1-0 win at Wembley? Last summer, his loan move was turned into a long-term deal. Unfortunately, injuries have restricted Fagan’s role this term. He suffered a broken leg after an horrific challenge by Newcastle’s Danny Guthrie at St James’ Park. Then, just as he’d set his sights on another lengthy run in Phil Brown’s side, he was struck down by knee trouble. Nothing, though, can keep Fagan down for long. He’s determined to play a leading role in the closing weeks of the campaign as the Tigers battle for top-flight survival. In the interview, Fagan reveals what life is like as a Barclays Premier League player, his views on City’s campaign and why he thinks the Tigers will be lining up in the top-flight next season. Oh… and read on to find out why he hopes to be emptying team-mate Andy Dawson’s wallet at the end of the campaign!

It’s been a pretty eventful season for you. Who writes your scripts? Yeah, from a personal point of view, it’s been an up-and-down kind of season for me, getting into the first team, and my first goals in the Barclays Premier League. Then, on the downside, there have been the injuries, the broken leg at Newcastle and then the knee problem more recently. You could say there haven’t been too many dull moments! Team-wise, it’s been good and we’ve not really been in the relegation positions. If someone had offered us that at the start of the season then we’d have snapped their hands off.

Looking at the league table at the moment, there is a hint of disappointment that we aren’t in a higher position. Is that a fair comment? Nah, not really. If you look back, there’s only the odd game where we’ve been beaten heavily. We’ve competed really well and that’s what is important. There are a lot of games when we’ve maybe lost 1-0 or 2-1 where we’ve had a genuine chance to win. There is a very narrow line. The difference in this league is that if you make mistakes, you get punished. That’s what happened.

When we won at Arsenal and Spurs, did that raise expectation levels to an unrealistic level? Perhaps among certain people – but not the players. Personally, I’d played at this level the previous season (with Derby) so I knew what we were going to get. Don’t get me wrong, the results at the start of the season were tremendous but there is no way that you are going to go through a season and not go on a run of losing games. It’s how you react that matters. We lost to Spurs and Blackburn but we bounced back to pick up a great three points at Fulham. That shows the spirit and character of the players and hopefully that will come through in the remaining games this season. I still don’t think we deserve to be where we are in the league. I think we’ve earned the right to be in the top half, especially with the level of our performances. There again, I suppose people will say the table doesn’t lie… not after this many games.

Bearing in mind what happened to Derby, did the start we made to the season surprise you? No, I wouldn’t say that. Honestly speaking, I don’t think too many of the lads expected to be in the top four after seven or eight games but we expected to win a fair few games. Perhaps we did do better than we expected but we didn’t come into this league not expecting to win a few games. We were positive and confidence was good but it’s fair to say we did better than a lot of people expected. Looking back, I think the fact people had written us off did make us more determined.

Did the Derby ‘experience’ affect the way you approached the season? I don’t think you can compare the two things. Okay, Derby went up via the Play-Offs, just like we did. But I think the feeling here was totally different and obviously the start we made was a big help. Winning games breeds confidence and that’s what we did at the start of the season. Derby never got off to that type of start. There was the spell here when we struggled for a few games that maybe brought a hint of negativity. We kept saying a win would come and it did, eventually. From Fulham, it was on to the next game.

How difficult was it for the players after the games against Spurs and Blackburn who were below us in the table when we lost to them? Did the pressure mount? Of course but it was more about the disappointment, the disappointment that we knew we could have got something from both games. Against Blackburn, we gave away two sloppy goals but we managed to get ourselves back into it, when we were down to 10 men. We were really gutted not to get a point. Overall, though, I think there have only been a couple of games when you can say we didn’t deserve anything, when we’ve been well beaten. The rest, we’ve been in with a chance which is a good sign, especially coming up from the league below and keeping the majority of sides within range in games.

On to your injury and the set-back at Newcastle must have been a hammer blow? Yeah, of course. I’d just got into the side and was doing well. It was a pretty bad injury – the worst I’ve had in my career. It was good to get involved again. It seemed to be a long time. Then, you starting doing well and you’re injured again. But that’s football for you. These things happen.

On a brighter note, there was the first goal at this level? Yeah, against Man City. I was on the way back from the injury and I didn‘t expect to get on the pitch to be honest. But I came on at half time and just tried to do the best I could to be honest. It was weird playing again after so long out. The game was over as a contest but I managed to get myself a little tap-in and I’ll take them. Sometimes, they are better than a 30-yard screamer. It was just a massive relief to get back in the side and to score. Obviously, though, the result – and the performance – was disappointing.

And the diving header against West Brom? I remember doing an interview at the start of the season and saying I was looking forward to playing against the Midlands sides. I’m from Birmingham and support Birmingham City so it was especially good to score against West Brom! I could go home and give a bit of stick to some of my mates who are West Brom fans! Again, it was disappointing we didn’t win that game but from a personal point of view it was just good to be involved again after the injury.

You had a knee operation after the turn of the year. Is it anything to worry about? Nah, not really. I had my knee ‘done’. It’s taken a while and it’s still a bit sore but the manager and the medical staff are confident it will get me through to the end of the season and then I can look to have a bit of a rest and then come back and work hard with the rest of the lads. At the moment, I just want to get involved again. There aren’t that many games left so I just want to do as well as I can in the relatively short space of time.

There are still some massive games between now and the end of the season. Yeah, I think Alex Ferguson says it’s ‘the squeaky bum time’ – at the top and bottom ends of the table. So many things could happen. There are big games every week and obviously I want to be involved in them.

Are you confident we will still be a Barclays Premier League club next season? Without a doubt. I don’t know what the manager has said about it but with the points we’ve already got we just need to keep things going. If you can beat the sides in and around you in the table then that’s a big help. There again, that doesn’t always happen. We lost to Blackburn and Spurs – and then won at Fulham where just about everyone has struggled this season, including a lot of the top sides.

You wouldn’t want everything to hinge on the last game of the season – Manchester United at home. Nah, nah, definitely not. That’s one game you wouldn’t want to have to win, even if United have already made sure of the title by then. I can’t see Sir Alex wanting to lose the last game. It will be a big game for both clubs – whatever the situation. Hopefully, we’ll have made certain of staying up by then and could you imagine what a result in that game would do for us?

Games against Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal – it’s all a bit different to when you made your debut for City. Definitely, Tranmere away. It’s totally different now. These are the games that as a kid you always dreamed of playing in. I’m sure the fans want to see us playing the really top teams. In some games when we were struggling, you’d hear a grumble every now and then that we weren’t winning games and we weren’t doing well but expectations have moved on since we were playing Tranmere – and rightly so. But they (the fans) have got to understand that this season was always going to be about consolidating and staying in this division. Deep down, I’m sure that when the fans look at the bigger picture they will realise that things have gone quite well, even though results haven’t been as good as they were at the start of the season. We’ve done well and staying up was always the aim.

So, you can hold your head up high in Birmingham these days? Without a doubt. I don’t have to walk around hiding, like what happened when I was at Derby when everyone knew we’d only got 11 points! But that’s the Premier League. Everyone knows you. It makes things exciting.

And what about Birmingham City? Yeah, I’m still a fan and hopefully they’ll come up this season and we’ll be playing them. As a Birmingham fan, you don’t really want to see Aston Villa doing so well but that said, Martin O’Neill has done a tremendous job there. He’s brought in a lot of young players and built on what was already there. They’ve done really well and are pushing for fourth place, behind Man’ United, Liverpool and Chelsea. It’s probably between Villa and Arsenal. If Arsenal don’t do it, then it would be absolutely massive for Villa to get into the Champions League.

Talking of the Midlands and Wolves could well be in the top-flight next season… Yeah, another Birmingham club. I’ve always rated their manager (Mick McCarthy) and he seems to have done well wherever he’s been. Wolves have been pretty unlucky during the last few years but he’s bought well and the players he’s brought in have shown they want to go up. In fact, I’ve had a little side bet with Andy Dawson that Wolves will get promoted, so here’s hoping. It might sound strange because there’s no love lost between Birmingham and Wolves but anything to take a few quid off ‘Daws’!

Interview reproduced from April issue of CITY Magazine – the official monthly magazine of Hull City AFC. To order logon to www.tigerleisure.com