Michael Owen: From Golden boy to football’s pariah

Just a quick filler article to keep us ticking over to the match thread troops but I was reading a story in The Echo today, about Michael Owen requesting to have his game as a pundit changed so he didn’t have to travel up to Newcastle as he was “scared for his safety” and it made me wonder how it all went so wrong for Owen. What is it about him that makes fans apathetic towards him at best and hold real hatred at worst?

A player of Michael Owen’s talents would normally be revered by at least one set of fans. After all, we’re talking about a Ballon D’or winner. Yet after setting the Premier League alight after coming through Liverpool’s academy, he ran down his contract and left for Real Madrid for a paltry £8 million. Not only that, he fully expected LFC to pay three times as much to bring him back!! Arrogant much Michael?

When it became apparent he wasn’t going to get his move back to LFC, he signed for Newcastle to much fanfare, yet despite scoring a respectable 30 goals in 79 appearances, he actually fears for his safety at the thought of returning to Newcastle? Sure he missed a lot of time through injury but so have other players, players who won’t have contributed 30 goals to the cause, who won’t invoke such hatred. Owen seems to have a knack for it however.

He admits himself in the article that perhaps buying a helicopter to fly his family back and forward wasn’t his best move. He claims it wasn’t so he could fly home after training every day but that was certainly the impression the fans had at the time. He also seemed as interested in his racehorses as his football at the time and his general big time Charlie image didn’t go down well in a working class city like Newcastle.

As for Liverpool fans, we can be a forgiving bunch. Most have forgiven Torres for example however Owen made sure there was no way back for him when signing for United, the cardinal sin for a Liverpool academy graduate who claims to love the club. In fact Gerrard couldn’t resist having a dig at him after we played Villa recently. Owen asked how he felt coming back to Anfield as he had always hated it. Gerrard’s reply that he would hate it if he’d played for United as well no doubt brought a chuckle from pretty much everyone.

I often wonder how he reflects on his career. Sure he won trophies, the Ballon D’or, played for Real Madrid… In some ways he achieved so much but I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t look back on his career with a tinge of regret. He’s despised by the fans of his boyhood club, as well as Newcastle where he had the second longest spell of his career. Real Madrid fans have probably forgotten he ever played for them and I suspect he just makes United fans a little uncomfortable. A generational talent, yet revered by nobody. Michael Owen I suspect is forever destined to be football’s most talented pariah.