Michael McGovern is not thinking about retirement as he approaches the end of his Norwich City deal.

The 38-year-old is among a number of senior players out of contract at Carrow Road in the summer.

McGovern has not featured in the Championship since December 2020, and is third choice between Tim Krul and Angus Gunn.

The former Northern Irish international, who ex-City boss Daniel Farke labelled ‘the model professional’, has his coaching badges but no plans to hang up the gloves.

“I’m not sure what will come next. As you get older, you do think about things like that but I do not have a concrete plan,” he said. “I want to continue playing for the next couple of years and evaluate things in more detail from there.

“I know that whatever I do next, I need goals to work towards and a structure to my day because that is what I’ve been used to throughout my playing career.

“I also need to make sure that I have the opportunity to spend as much time with my family as I can, too.

“I have my coaching badges and people have said to me before that they think I have the right temperament to be a good coach.

“Whether I explore that further, time will tell but I am fully focused on playing and I like to be active so sitting around won’t be the next step. Let’s see what happens.”

The club’s longest-serving senior player would have liked more minutes on the pitch in a six year stint, but has been part of two promotion winning squads from the Championship.

“It’s been up and down for me. When I joined the club, I was the number one goalkeeper in my first season however since then I have been playing back up,” said McGovern, speaking to football site World Football Index.

“The highs are without doubt winning two promotions to the Premier League. The second promotion means a lot to me because I contributed by playing in a good proportion of the games.

“I also went on to play a few games in the Premier League which is always nice. Overall, I am thankful for my time at the club so far because I come into training and work with great people every day. It has certainly been an enjoyable period for me in that regard.”

 

McGovern’s longevity can be measured by the fact he started his playing career in the same Celtic dressing room as Paul Lambert.

The popular Norwich City keeper came to prominence with his stand out displays at Euro2016 for Northern Ireland that earned him a move to Carrow Road.

But McGovern took his first steps in the game at Parkhead, during a Martin O’Neill era that was built around some huge personalities.

“It was an amazing experience as a young player because there were so many quality players and big characters at the club,” he said. “Football has changed in that regard in recent years because characters and dressing rooms like that don’t really exist anymore. Times have moved on.

“It was amazing to be travelling with the team under Martin and then Gordon Strachan or being on the bench.

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“There was always good banter flying about and we had fun off the park although, on the park, things were taken incredibly seriously.

“Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and Paul Lambert were some of the senior players at that time, to name just a few. Lambert had won a European Cup at Dortmund just a year prior to joining Celtic and he was great with the young players.”

McGovern’s career has come full circle since with a watching brief in recent seasons at Carrow Road, bar an emergency shift during the club’s 2020/21 Championship title winning season.

“The main difference between being the number one and number two is that when you are the number one, you get yourself into a consistent rhythm by playing every week,” he said.

“It is harder as a number two because you don’t have that natural in-game rhythm by playing so it takes a strong mentality to be able to be fully prepared for whenever you are required.

“Mentally, you must be prepared for every game in case you are needed because you just never know when an injury or a red card is around the corner which will lead to you being given an opportunity.”