Owen Garvan

Owen William Garvan (born 29 January 1988) is an Irish former professional footballer who played as a midfielder.

Garvan began his career in his native Ireland where he played for Home Farm as a schoolboy.

He earned a move to England with Ipswich Town in 2004, where he helped his side to the FA Youth Cup Final in 2005.

Garvan moved to Ipswich Town in November 2004, where he immediately became a regular in the Ipswich youth teams, helping his side to the final of the FA Youth Cup in 2005.

He missed the second leg of the final against Southampton after spending the match day in hospital with a viral infection.

He made his professional debut in the 2005–06 season and went on to make 174 appearances for the club, scoring 15 goals.

Following his success with the youth team, Garvan was handed his professional debut on 6 August 2005, starting in Ipswich's season opening 1–0 win over Cardiff City at Portman Road.

He established himself as a first-team regular in Joe Royle's side, scoring his first goal for the club in a 2–2 draw with Southampton on 13 September.

He ended his first season with three goals in 33 games.

He scored four goals in 15 under-21 appearances between 2007 and 2010.

Born in Dublin, Garvan grew up playing for Home Farm in a team coached by his father, Gerry Garvan.

His side went undefeated for three years, and were notable for beating a Celtic youth side in Glasgow, a match in which four members of the side ended up joining Celtic.

Darren O'Dea, Diarmuid O'Carroll, Gareth Christie and Gareth Walsh were all offered contracts by Celtic, while Chris McCann moved to England to join Burnley.

Garvan also made a move, joining Ipswich Town along with teammates Shane Supple and Michael Synnott.

In the 2006–07 season, Garvan received the first professional red card of his career after being sent off for a second bookable offence during a 2–0 home defeat by Leicester City on 10 February 2007.

He scored once in his 29 games for the club during the season, scoring the opening goal in a 3–0 win over Plymouth Argyle on 31 March 2007.

He then made 45 appearances during the 2007–08 season, where he scored three goals.

Garvan continued to hold down a regular starting berth in the 2008–09 season by making 39 appearances and scoring seven times.

However, under new Ipswich manager Roy Keane, Garvan found first-team appearances scarce, as he went on to make just 28 appearances in 2009–10 following two seasons of regular first-team football under his previous manager and fellow countryman Jim Magilton.

At the end of the 2009–10 season, Keane deemed Garvan surplus to requirements and placed him on the transfer list.

He had made 174 appearances for Ipswich in all competitions.

After falling out of favour under Ipswich manager Roy Keane, Garvan moved to Crystal Palace in 2010.

He scored one goal during the campaign with the winner in Ipswich's 2–1 FA Cup third round win at Blackpool on 2 January 2010.

After being subject to a £150,000 bid from Ipswich's Championship rivals Crystal Palace in July 2010, Garvan signed for the club for an undisclosed fee on 3 August 2010.

He made his debut four days later in Palace's 3–2 home win against Leicester City.

He scored his first goal for his new side on 23 October in a 4–3 defeat at Preston North End.

He was sent off against Sheffield United on 20 November for a second bookable offence.

He ended the season with 28 appearances for Palace.

Garvan made just 23 appearances during the 2011–12 season, but the 2012–13 campaign proved to be much more successful for him.

In addition to making 32 outings, he scored four times to help his side to the play-offs and reach the Wembley final.

Garvan was a member of the Crystal Palace side that earned promotion to the Premier League in 2013 following a 1–0 win over Watford in the play-off final.

He made a handful of Premier League appearances, but was eventually loaned out to Millwall during the same season, and then Bolton Wanderers the following season.

He played for 84 minutes in the play-off final against Watford on 27 May 2013.

His side won 1–0 in extra time courtesy of a Kevin Phillips penalty.

When his contract expired after five years with Palace where he had amassed 87 appearances and 11 goals, he joined League One club Colchester United in August 2015.

He played 53 times and scored twice for Colchester before leaving in April 2017.

Garvan returned to his native country and joined Dublin-based side St Patrick's Athletic in July 2017.

He spent one season there before leaving the club by mutual consent.

Garvan announced his retirement from football in 2020 which was effectively backdated to 2018 meaning he had played his final match at the age of 30.

Garvan represented the Republic of Ireland at under-15, under-17, under-19 and under-21 levels.