Gareth Barry interview: West Brom midfielder shows humility on the verge of history

On Monday night the veteran midfielder will break Ryan Giggs’s Premier League appearance record when he features in his 633rd game in the top tier of English football.

But as this humble man from Hastings is quick to point out during a morning of endless media interviews, it’s a record that deserves to be recognised for what it is.

“I’m aware Ryan played in the old First Division before and collected a few more appearances than the 633,” he smiles. “I’m also aware the Premier League started in 1992, just 25 years ago and records existed before that too!

“I’m not here to say I’m top of the tree in English football history, I know that.”

Giggs video-called Barry earlier today to congratulate him on the achievement, but it wasn’t without a few jokes.

“He just said his was a tougher record because he’s done it at a bigger club throughout his career,” said Barry. “Fair enough, I’m not going to argue with Ryan about trophies and things like that.

“But I will try and get past his Football League appearances (672).”

Barry's humility should do nothing to diminish what he has already achieved with Aston Villa, Manchester City, Everton, and now West Brom.

A permanent fixture in the Premier League for the past 19 seasons, he has played 30 or more games in 18 of those campaigns. He’s finished in the top half 14 times, and in the top six on 10 occasions. With City, he won the title.

It’s been a life at the top for a man who, it becomes clear early on, is very much down to earth.

His parents, wife, and three children, will all be at the Emirates Stadium on Monday to toast his record but it’s unlikely to be a raucous affair with champagne flowing.

“I’m not fussy,” said Barry. “I always have a pint with my mum (Linda) and dad (Stan) after every game and have done that since I was a young player. I’ll still hopefully do that on Monday night.

“But anything other than a positive result there won't be a smile on my face. My focus will be on winning the game, as crazy as it sounds after all that."

It’s fitting that Barry’s parents will be there to support him because they’ve been the constant throughout his career.

We may be nearing game number 633, but Barry can remember number one as if it was yesterday.

It was the beginning of May in 1998 when Linda and Stan told their skinny 17-year-old son he was going to be playing for Villa away at Sheffield Wednesday.

“My parents got a phone call to say I might be on the bench at Hillsborough so they drove up from Hastings to Sheffield,” he revealed. “I heard there might have been something in it.

“I came out for the second half and John Gregory turned to me (and put me on).

“You’re not sure what to expect, whether you're up to that level or if it’s too early. But you run around on adrenaline.

“The team won the game (3-1) and now I look back at that defining moment and realise it was the start of something good.”

Debuts mean a lot to Barry. He has kept all of his first shirts from over the years and the prize possession in his special room of memorabilia is the shirt he wore on the first of 53 outings for England.

But his collection is nothing on mum Linda’s, who still keeps a scrapbook of her son’s achievements, 20 years on.

“I was delighted my parents were there at the start of my career,” said Barry. “They put zero pressure on me from a young age.

“My mum would always know if I wasn’t comfortable with anything. She would always make sure I was enjoying my football.”

Two decades later and Barry is still doing that, enjoying himself, and his relentless determination hasn’t diminished.

He left Everton in the summer in search of regular football, even though Ronald Koeman wanted to keep him and offered him a two-year deal.

Barry is now expecting to end his career at The Hawthorns, where he has already made a huge impression.

“It might be a harder, tougher challenge, but I didn't want to slowly go down that road of fizzling out which I thought I might have done at Everton,” he said.

“I could have still achieved this record and would have still got enough appearances at Everton, but for me, running out on a Saturday afternoon in the Premier League is what I've always enjoyed doing and I just didn't feel I was going to be close enough to the action there."

In the early days at Villa, Barry was kept on the straight and narrow by Gareth Southgate, who was playing in a back three with him at the time.

“He was pretty straight but he had a bollocking in him too at the right times,” he said. “That’s the one thing, he always said the right things at the right time when it needed saying. He was very grounded and I liked his style.”

Barry adopted that no-frills approach to his life off the pitch, and it was in some ways akin to his comfortable playing style that has evolved over the years. As he explains, there are some tricks of the trade that never grow old.

“As a youth team player we were advised to eat beans on toast,” he reveals. “That’s still there, beans on toast, if you want that, chicken and pasta, it’s still the same, the old school methods are still there.”

But he has made sure he's adapted to changes in the modern game in order to pro-long his career.

One of the secrets behind his longevity has been his willingness to put his pride to one side and try new things.

When he was 28, and coming to the end of his Villa career, he started to do yoga in an effort to enhance his physique, and it’s something that has served him well over the past eight years.

“As a player who’s been around you’ve got an old school mentality," he said. "So when somebody mentioned yoga for the first time I just looked at it and thought ‘this isn’t for me, this is for an older woman down at the health club trying to get supple’.

“You don’t want a fellow player of the same sort of age looking at you doing it, going ‘what’s he doing?’ But I thought ‘no I can see the benefits there, I’ve got to embrace it’.

“You take the banter from the lads while they’re on the exercise bike and you’re doing it. But you generally come away from stuff like that feeling better, ready for training, ready for a game.

“Now I come into the (Albion) dressing room and there’ll be six, seven, eight players doing it so it’s slowly taken off and become a big part of football.

“Ryan Giggs was the first, he got media coverage doing it and it obviously helped him. You look at people like that and see what they’re doing.”

Barry has matured alongside the Premier League, which has, during his career, grown into a global beast swollen with unimaginable amounts of money.

Barry made his top tier debut six days before Sam Field was born, but he's not ready to hang his boots up just yet.

Eager to play on beyond the end of this season, he hopes that he has a few more years left in him at Albion, but he is acutely aware that retirement will happen eventually.

At the moment, he has no idea what he wants to do, and he’s not giving it too much thought either, because he doesn’t want to detract from his focus on playing.

He may have the mentality and experience to be a manager, but it is not something that interests him right now.

“I'm not getting that draw at the minute,” he admitted. “And I'm not going to do it for the sake of it.

“Like anything, you've really got to want to do something, you've got to have that drive.

“I want to finish focused on my football, I don't want to do my badges while I'm playing.

“That's not to say I'm not going to miss it and won't want to do my badges when I'm finished. But I'll make decisions as and when they happen, I'm not one to plan ahead.

“Retirement is something I’m aware of. I’m not sure I’m scared of it. I’m half looking forward to being able to properly relax.

“One of my strengths is focusing on football, even in the summer I try not to switch off too much.

“I’m looking forward to relaxing but at the same time I’m wary the mind and the body needs to be doing something. You can only sit around and play so much golf.”

After 20 years of training, games, and media duties – the dad-of-three is looking forward to a slice of overdue independence.

“As a footballer you’re always being told where to be and what to do,” he said. “The one thing I’m looking forward to is making decisions off my own bat. I’m going to make my own schedule.”

However, it seems he's got a few more years left on the pitch before he gets to that.