231: Michael Owen, Manchester United, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, 2009/10

There are fewer things more excruciating than writing personal statements. Think back to your last job application or, even worse, when you did your UCAS form. Unpleasant right? Unless you are gifted with a Cristiano Ronaldo sized ego or a Steve Bruce flair for prose they turn into the painful process of polishing a life full of turds or, worse, actually admitting you might be quite good at a few things. The best case scenario sees you using phrases like “dedication” and “commitment” in every other sentence. In the worst case you just end up making stuff up – like a friend of mine who claimed he coached tennis for children with disabilities when all he’d done is throw a ball back to a kid in a wheelchair at the local park.

 

This level of truth bending brings us to Michael Owen. In fairness to the diminutive striker there was little need to exaggerate his achievements on and off the football pitch. Over a hundred Premier League goals. Ballon D’or winner in 2001. UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup winner with Liverpool. 40 goals in 89 appearances for England including THAT goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup. Two starring roles in CBBC series although sadly only one of these involved him being slagged off by Neville Southall for bullying children.

 

However, the majority of these successes occurred early in Owen’s career and didn’t include the litany of injuries that blighted his latter years in football. The knee injury he suffered in the 2006 World Cup was genuinely sickening and took him over a year to recover from. By this stage he was at Newcastle United and the club was haemorrhaging money to pay his wages and fund the transfer of his replacement, Obafemi Martins, while Owen was sat on the sidelines. After returning to fitness Owen clashed with his club over further injuries sustained on international duty and by the start of the 2008/09 season the Magpies were keen to offload the striker. Whilst he decided not to renew his contract, Owen stuck around until the end of the season preventing Newcastle from cashing in on a transfer fee that may have softened the blow of their relegation to the Championship. In July 2009 the former boy wonder was a free agent but one that could be seen, for a variety of reasons, as damaged goods.

 

Anyone who has heard Michael Owen commentate is aware that he was probably not the best person to put together his personal statement for any job applications. Luckily, unlike us mere mortals, Owen’s agent was on hand to launch the PR offensive needed to find his client future employment and, in the summer of 2009, the back pages were awash with news of the “glossy brochure” doing the rounds at Premier League clubs offering them Owen’s services. Any of us who work in any area of the public sector will know that colour printing is an expensive business, let alone glossy paper, so it is no surprise that several clubs were impressed by what they saw. However, it came as a huge surprise when reigning Premier League champions Manchester United added Owen to their already impressive squad and handed him the coveted no.7 jersey recently vacated by Cristiano Ronaldo.

 

Whether it was the management of Sir Alex Ferguson or the high quality of the supporting cast around him, Owen flourished in his first few months at Old Trafford scoring the winning goal in the Manchester derby in the sixth minute of injury time and a hat-trick against Wolfsburg in the Champions League. He opened the scoring for United in their League Cup final victory against Aston Villa in February 2010 but pulled up injured just before half-time. What appeared to be a minor hamstring pull was actually a serious injury which ruled him out for the rest of the season and ended any lingering hope of a call up for England’s 2010 World Cup campaign.

 

He regained fitness ahead of the 2010/11 season and pitched in with a few handy goals as United regained the Premier League title but it was clear that Owen was now a squad player at best. He did sign a further one-year deal at Old Trafford but injury limited him to just four appearances in the 2011/12 season and he announced his departure from the club at the end of the campaign. Nine games at Stoke City followed in the 2012/13 season but his body had finally given up on him and he announced his retirement from professional football at the end of the season.

 

Michael Owen’s three years at Manchester United allowed him to add another League Cup and Community Shield to his impressive trophy collection as well as a long sought after Premier League winner’s medal. His injury time winner against Manchester City also meant he had scored goals in the Manchester, Merseyside and Tyne-Wear derbies as well as El Clasico during his brief spell at Real Madrid. By resurrecting his career at United he also became only the seventh player to score 150 Premier League goals when he scored for Stoke against Swansea City in 2013. If this can teach us one thing about life it’s to never underestimate the power of colour printing and good quality printer paper.