Читать книгу Michael Owen: Off the Record - Michael Owen - Страница 9

My Liverpool career started in earnest on my seventeenth birthday, when I went into chief executive Peter Robinson’s office to sign my first professional contract. They gave me the classic red shirt with my name and number on, and that was the best part of the ceremony. Never mind the money.

I had always been a number 9, right the way through my FA Youth Cup years, but I was about to say goodbye to the centre-forward’s traditional number. I was number 18 in the full Liverpool squad to begin with, but the following year, when John Barnes was retiring, Ronnie Moran, the assistant coach, approached me one day and asked, ‘Do you want the number 10 shirt next year?’ Robbie Fowler was number 9, and plainly he wasn’t going to be giving up his jersey any time soon, so I moved up to 10. Funnily enough, I went through the same routine with England. Alan Shearer was the resident number 9 at international level and there was no chance of getting that one off him. So it was number 10 twice. And I’ve held it ever since.

Ten is, of course, a special number for a footballer, because everyone associates it with Pelé, Zico and Maradona. But in the English game the number 9 has a particular association. It’s the old symbol of the strong and determined centre-forward. Not that I get too fussed about these things. The number on your back provides no clue as to how many goals you’re going to score. It’s numbers on the board that count.

Peter Robinson had already been telling my dad for some months that I ought to appoint an agent, but at the time I was still only 16 and was initially reluctant to take one on. Still, Peter was adamant. ‘Michael will need an agent,’ he told Dad. Dad then spoke to Simon Marsh of Umbro, who had been supporting me since I was 15. Simon said he knew someone who might be ideal, and suggested both sides meet without knowing who the other one was. So, on my seventeenth birthday, with my new number 18 shirt with Owen on the back, the door opened and Simon and Tony Stephens walked in. My parents were there, too, and they sized up Tony to see whether he was the right man. They had a gut feeling that he was the one for me. Because Tony didn’t know much about me he wanted to go away and do some research, but Mum and Dad stopped him and said, ‘Well, we want you, so we want to know now whether you want us.’ They didn’t like the idea of him going off to think about. So he said yes there and then. Tony already had David Platt, Dwight Yorke, Alan Shearer and David Beckham on his books (this was before he merged himself into the big SFX organization).

Tony was impressive when we began talking to him more. I soon forgot that he had asked for more time to think about taking me on. I knew I could prove to him that he’d made a good decision. Ninety-nine per cent of the public don’t know what Tony looks like. If his picture appears in the paper he kicks himself because he tries to avoid being photographed. He never gives interviews. Most agents can’t wait to shout their mouths off to get business, but he does everything privately and low key. That’s a plus point I really value. His experience at the negotiating table is invaluable too. He has arranged huge transfer deals for Shearer, Platt, Yorke and, of course, Beckham. But that’s not the main reason I’m with him. If ever you have a problem, he seems to be the ultimate authority. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, he’s always knowledgeable. If you’re ever in trouble he knows all the right people. Life’s about contacts half the time, and Tony’s are second to none. He’s very rarely proved wrong. He’ll select deals that fit with your image and he’ll never send you down the wrong line. Shearer and Beckham, for example, were aimed in totally different directions. I couldn’t see Alan doing a deal with Brylcreem or a sunglasses company. It’s all very well saying, ‘It’s easy when you’ve got good clients,’ but it’s still possible to make big mistakes. Sure, Tony has all the right ammunition, but he knows how to use it.

The first contract I signed was with Malcolm Douglas from the watch company Tissot, who I’m still proud to be with. I was really pleased to attract their interest when I was on £500 a week, and I like the people associated with the company. Umbro’s support enabled me to buy my first car. Simon Marsh and Martin Prothero were there from the very beginning and became really good friends and golf partners. Jaguar were another good contact of Tony’s. Alan Shearer joined them first, and Beckham and I then signed similar deals. I’ve been driving a Jaguar since I was 18. I get two free ones every year. Walkers Crisps is another firm I linked up with – and they even named a flavour after me: Cheese and Owen. My first substantial soft-drinks contract was with Lucozade Sport. I’ve also written a column in the News of the World with Dave Harrison, a trusted friend, and had a link with Topps, who make sticker cards for kids. I was with Yamaha for a while, too, and I now have an arrangement with a Japanese suit company, Aoyami, as well as Vivid Imaginations, who make children’s football toys, and most recently Persil and Asda. My dad’s personal favourite is my annual calendar deal with Danilo.

Four months after my visit to Peter Robinson’s office, and with only a handful of reserve games behind me, I was summoned for a first-team trip to Sunderland. Initially I was under the care of Ronnie Moran, the head coach. Ronnie loved the kids. ‘Don’t worry, son, you’re only young, it’s just down to experience. Make sure you learn.’ That’s what he would say to us, and it was exactly what we needed to hear at that age. He treated us so well, and knew absolutely everything about the game. Sammy Lee, who played in some of the greatest Liverpool teams, was also around. Ronnie left the club when Roy Evans left, in November 1998, and after that the men in charge were Patrice Bergues, then Jacques Crevoissier, then Cristian Damiano, who was previously with Jean Tigana at Fulham. Since Ronnie, we’ve had two coaches on account of the increased numbers in the squad. When I first joined, Sammy was the reserve-team manager; then he became the main first-team coach before leaving Anfield in the summer of 2004 to take up a post at the FA.

‘Bring your gear, just in case there are any injuries,’ Ronnie added before that mid-April 1997 Sunderland game. A few hours later he told me I was in the first-team squad. I assumed, of course, that I’d been included for educational purposes. It was just to give me a look round, so I told Mum and Dad not to bother making the long journey north, and didn’t ask for any tickets. Roy Evans, the manager, duly announced his team, and naturally I wasn’t included, but when it came to calling out the substitutes I suddenly heard my name. In those days we were allowed to have a mobile phone with us until we entered the dressing room an hour before the game. I didn’t own one, but I did manage to borrow one from a team-mate and called my parents from the centre of the pitch. Dad said, ‘It’s only an hour until kick-off – shall we try to get up there for the second half?’ I told them not to bother, which turned out to be the right call. It wasn’t the sort of game in which a reserve striker gets on.

Next time out for me was Wimbledon away on 6 May, and I was on the bench again. This time a fresh striker was needed in the later stages of the game. We were 1–0 down, and with about half an hour to go the manager said, ‘Go and get warmed up.’ I rose, shook myself down and took a couple of steps. I’d jogged about 10 yards when Wimbledon scored again. I didn’t have time to reach the corner flag before I heard a shout of ‘Michael!’ As I turned they were gesturing at me to get ready to go on. So no warm-up; just straight into the thick of it for my League debut.

To run on to a football pitch in a Liverpool first-team shirt for the first time is a massive moment in anybody’s life. It’s one of those crests that is instantly recognizable across the world. But as a kid that day, I didn’t think of Bob Paisley and Bill Shankly and all those European Cups; I was living for the moment. I looked around and saw Stan Collymore beside me and John Barnes just in behind. It was only after the game that I thought, ‘I’ve actually played for Liverpool Football Club today.’ Scored, as well, because I got off to the best possible start. It was the kind of goal I’d been scoring for 10 years. I was looking for gaps when Stig Inge Bjornebye played a perfectly weighted ball which I barely had to touch. I just ran round the outside of it and placed it in the corner. For the remainder of that game I felt just great – fresh and dangerous. The downside was that we couldn’t set up an equalizer.

It was in the next game five days later, when I started against Sheffield Wednesday in a match we needed to win to reach the Champions League, that I started to feel vaguely important. I was 17, and they were showing how much they believed in me. I was so proud, running out at Hillsborough as one of the starting eleven. I can remember the whole day vividly. Sheffield Wednesday’s pitch is massive and I was exceptionally tense. Twenty minutes into the match I was struck by horrendous cramp. I’d never had it before, and I’d always assumed it was something that tended to attack in the eightieth or ninetieth minute. It started in my calf, then spread to my hamstrings, my groin and my thighs. By half-time I felt as if I had cramp in every muscle. It must have been sheer nerves and tension. I was considering saying to the physios, ‘Look, I can’t carry on. Every time I break out of a walk my legs lock up.’

As we sat down, the manager announced he was going to make a change. I automatically thought, ‘Well, I’m the kid, and I’m surrounded by big, established stars, so it’s bound to be me.’ Instead, Roy Evans looked at Stan Collymore and said, ‘Stan, you’re coming off.’ I was in shock. It wasn’t in my nature to analyse Stan’s deteriorating relationship with the manager or the club; I just thought, ‘I must be playing better than Stan Collymore!’ which gave me a fresh injection of confidence.

I played the full 90 minutes, and won the free-kick from which we scored our equalizer. The 2–1 loss at Wimbledon had put us out of the championship race, and the draw with Sheffield Wednesday deprived us of a Champions League place, yet there I was coming off the pitch with a beaming smile.

Stan left Liverpool under something of a cloud, but to the best of my knowledge there was no tension between him and the rest of the players. As a kid looking in, my guess was that he found it hard to be close to people, though he was always friendly and shared our laughs and jokes. He was good pals with Jamie Redknapp and Phil Babb, among others, but it’s fair to say he was a loner. I did admire him as a player, though. What he did at Nottingham Forest got him his move to Liverpool, and his whole career was built around that. He was by no means a failure at Anfield, where he made a cracking start. He was always fit and made and created plenty of goals. But Robbie Fowler was on fire at that time and was plainly the main man. It’s possible that Stan found it hard to play the supporting role, and certainly there was friction between him and the manager; as a player, you can just sense it. There was no single falling-out between them; it was just a gradual icing over of the relationship. The manager starts bringing a player off early in a game, the player gets resentful; if he’s two minutes late for training the next day, it seems a bigger issue than it really is. I should say that as far as I was concerned Stan was never a problem in terms of not turning up for training, or arguing with the staff. He was just one of those characters who live within themselves.

Although I’d trained a few times with the first team, because Liverpool had a system of plucking the odd player out from the reserves to practise with the seniors, I certainly hadn’t been a regular companion for them on the training ground. I didn’t really know the men I joined in the closing stages of the 1996/97 campaign, and the squad at that time was packed with big names and big personalities. With those first few kicks at the end of my debut season, I didn’t have time to form firm opinions about the lively characters around me, but in retrospect I can appreciate that it was a great laugh coming into that dressing room. We had a terrific team spirit, which can count for a lot.

There was a negative aspect to the ‘Spice Boys’ image that some players acquired, but I honestly don’t think anyone did anything to the detriment of the team. Yes, they came in and talked about girls, or said, ‘Hey, come and have look at my new car.’ If you look at the Melwood car park now and compare it to the one we had in my early days they are simply miles apart. It’s true that before Gérard Houllier took over Liverpool players were less self-conscious about showing off their wealth. The culture was more laddish, closer to the stereotype of how young footballers behave. It wouldn’t be unusual to see the odd girlie mag lying around the changing room. But it was harmless lads’ behaviour. I know from talking to my brothers, who work in factories, that pranks and jokes are a feature of the workplace everywhere. I couldn’t condemn it, not least because I was part of it. I enjoyed being one of the lads and going out for a drink from time to time. It was definitely a different atmosphere to the one we have now. Enjoyment was a large part of the training routine. If someone played badly in practice we’d make a joke of it to lift his spirits. These days, if a player is awful on the training ground it’s no laughing matter. He’d probably be dropped.

David James, or Jame-o, our goalkeeper at the time, is a great lad and always one for the banter. When I first arrived in the Liverpool dressing room he wasn’t the first to put his arm round me or go out of his way to make me feel comfortable. For that reason I often felt a bit nervous in his company. He was so lively, and he would take the mick out of anyone, no matter how important they were. If he had it in for you, you’d be on the wrong end of his chat for quite a while. When you develop, you can give it back, but at that stage he was a bit too big and clever for me to be taking on. I didn’t have much to do with him in those days, but he lives quite near me now and we often speak on the phone. We’re good friends. But I admit I was very wary of him at first. He wasn’t nasty, but he could take the mick out of you in front of the other players. I tried to avoid him doing that to me.

The main difference between English and foreign players is the sense of humour. If you get up to a prank with someone’s toothbrush in the team hotel, a lot of foreign players just won’t find that funny. But I’m laughing even as I say this. In my early days Steve Harkness was the biggest prankster. Didi Hamann has an Englishman’s sense of humour, but apart from him I’ve yet to meet one overseas player who laughs at the things we do. In training, if you make a silly mistake the English lads will laugh their heads off, whereas the foreign lads are much more serious in their approach. They are all good guys so I’m not trying to label them in any way. I’m just trying to highlight the difference between the two cultures. I can remember Robbie Fowler getting thrown into a puddle and covered in mud at countless training sessions. They were just harmless, laddish things. I’m not saying it was better or worse, just different. The trick, I think, is to strike a balance. It’s scientifically proven that alcohol is not good for you too close to a game. But then, our occasional nights out helped us to develop such a strong team spirit. We would have died for one another.

According to Liverpool tradition, training wasn’t practice for the game on Saturday. We had a different mindset. The warm-up would last five minutes; now it’s half an hour. Five-a-side used to be the centrepiece. Only on Fridays did we prepare for corners and other set-pieces. Otherwise five-a-side was the religion.

I didn’t know it then, but Liverpool were coming to the end of this boot-room era, in which the manager’s job would be passed along the line by men who had been around the club for years and understood Liverpool’s unique culture. If anyone was to point the finger and say, ‘You partied too much, you did this or that wrong,’ it was certainly outweighed by the team spirit we built up. From every negative you can draw a positive. If you do everything by the book – train every minute, eat only the healthiest food, sleep for 10 hours a night – it might be great for your physical preparation, but if your mind goes stale and you’re not enjoying your life then it can become counter-productive. If a get-together on a Tuesday night before a Saturday game brings players closer together, you won’t find me always condemning that as wrong.

I’m not a big drinker myself, and on a Thursday or a Friday alcohol ought to be out of bounds. But it’s too simplistic to condemn all socializing as irresponsible or unprofessional. In part, I remember those early days for the amount of time I spent laughing and enjoying myself. We looked forward to training because the camaraderie was so good. Also, people forget how good some of the Liverpool performances were during those years. I can remember going to watch the first team between the ages of 14 and 17 and being entertained every week. We were winning games 4–3 and playing fantastic stuff.

Temptation is a fact of any young Premiership player’s early career. Suddenly there is money and a thriving social life on offer. But I think of my elders during my first two seasons at Anfield as really good men. A myth has grown up that some of them were rebels who didn’t care about the job. It really wasn’t like that. I was 17 years and 144 days old when I made my first appearance – Liverpool’s youngest debutant – and the senior players could see I was a decent player who needed looking after. If anything, they protected me. If we had a night out, there was no peer pressure to get drunk or behave stupidly. If you wanted to drink Coca-Cola all night then that was fine. They wanted me to do well and they looked out for me. They didn’t try to lead me astray. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I did, however, have to grow up fast. I was mixing with 25- and 30-year-olds who were a lot more worldly than me. That forced me to be more mature than I otherwise might have been. I learned the rights from the wrongs very quickly.

Robbie Fowler was the top man. When I joined the club properly he was the one I looked up to. Even though Ian Rush was still a legend at Anfield, he wasn’t around when I was breaking into the first team, whereas Robbie had always been present, and I had studied him closely when he was 15 and 16 and I was only 10 or 11. He was such a good player that he became the one whose standards I wanted to match. It wasn’t a question of trying to take his place, more ‘Robbie Fowler’s the best, try to get alongside him’. Sadly his career has been blighted by injuries, but in his prime he was a wonderful finisher – really sharp. He was never one to take players on and beat them for pace, but then he didn’t need to. He could finish with both feet from any range. Whether it was placement or power or chipping the keeper, he was awesome to watch.

Robbie and Steve McManaman were joined at the hip – off the pitch and often on it too. I didn’t point it out to them at the time, but if Macca had the ball and Robbie and me were both making runs with a fifty-fifty chance of receiving the pass, it would rarely come to me. You could tell they were best mates because Macca was always looking to feed Robbie. It got a bit frustrating at the end. But Robbie was a great lad, and one of the chief jokers in the team.

His most infamous scrape was pretending to snort a line of cocaine off the pitch during a Merseyside derby. When he made the odd mistake, it was always through naivety. People forget that footballers are normal lads, and Robbie was from Toxteth, a particularly tough district of Liverpool. We forget how much stick he took from opposition supporters. Take it from me – and I don’t even live there – Liverpool is rumour city. Everything is recorded, distorted and passed on. If you’re seen going into a toilet, it must have been to take drugs; if you’re seen outside a casino, you must have just lost two million quid. Bearing in mind that half the city is red, and half blue, it’s an easy line of attack to spread some gossip about one of the enemy’s players. Robbie took the full brunt. Every time we played Everton their fans sang songs about him being a ‘smackhead’. You can see how frustrated someone would get if they hadn’t been doing that kind of thing. The upside, I suppose, is that because Robbie grew up in the heart of Liverpool – unlike me – he became very streetwise. I think that helped make him such a success.

When Liverpool fans see one of their own performing well in the team, that player develops a special status. The supporters can relate to him as a man as well as a footballer. Maybe they saw themselves in Robbie – a working-class lad, raised in Liverpool, who had come up through the ranks in the traditional way. Coming from Chester, I was a comparative outsider, so there was never much chance that I would be given a nickname to compare with that of Robbie, who was known to the fans simply as ‘God’. When I was growing up, I thought he was God too. I was never jealous of him, but I did take note of the fact that the fans were less inclined to sing songs about me than him, even when I was making a big impact in the team. At times I did wonder why I wasn’t regarded as another of the club’s ‘local heroes’.

Now, I have a different perspective. Towards the end of his Liverpool career, when he was slipping, Robbie fell behind some of the club’s other strikers on the supporters’ song list. They would chant about Titi Camara, or one of the other forwards the club had bought from overseas. Some of them hadn’t scored a hundredth of the goals Robbie registered for Liverpool, and these days I ask myself, ‘Was Robbie enough of a god to Liverpool fans?’ He returned from Manchester City a hero, of course, in the winter transfer window of 2006.

But it happens in football. When you hear Ryan Giggs being booed by United fans, as he was one season, you know for sure that nobody is immune. I don’t understand how people can ignore a player’s achievements just because he’s going through a sticky patch. When Giggs was being jeered, he had won seven championship medals and a European Cup. How can that be forgotten? People will say, ‘He earns £50,000 a week and he’s a millionaire now,’ but it doesn’t half hurt to be booed by your own people – the fans who grew up in the same communities as you.

On the cast list of big Liverpool characters, Robbie’s mate Steve McManaman was also near the top. Contrary to popular opinion, he was a quiet and sensible lad. If someone was getting out of hand, he would be the one to have a word and tell him to calm down, or apologize to the people the player had just upset. You never saw Macca drunk. On the pitch, when he was in his prime I’ve never seen anyone like him. When I was 15 or 16 years old, watching from the stands, he controlled games. We used to play 3–5–2 just so he could have the run of the pitch. He used to win matches on his own. He was the best player I’ve seen live.

Paul Ince joined us a little while later. That was a fantastic signing. The basis of it was that we had tremendous flair going forward but could be a bit open at the back when all the midfielders were on the attack. It’s true that we did need a bit of steel to break up opposition moves, and even in his mid-thirties, in a one-off game Incey could mix it with the very best. He was definitely one of the jokers, with a huge lust for life. If he had you under his wing you’d certainly find him putting a glass of champagne in your hand and offering you a cigarette (not that I smoked). I say this affectionately, because it was always light-hearted with Incey. He had a sense of fun. He was made captain almost straight away. The peak of his career was spent with Manchester United and Inter Milan, but he still did an important job for us.

In August 1997, during the summer before my first full season, John Barnes moved on to Newcastle, which left a big hole on the training ground. In games, you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he gave the ball away. In training, he was just majestic, a joy to watch. You ask anyone who’s played alongside him, ‘Who’s the most gifted player you’ve ever seen in training?’ I’ll bet they say John Barnes. His passing, his touch, his finishing – everything was beautiful to observe. I didn’t play with him in his heyday, but I’ve watched videos of him and he was awesome. He has to be among the top three players Liverpool have ever had. He does get recognition for his enormous natural talent, but not quite on the level he deserves. It might be because he didn’t perform as well for England as he did for Liverpool. But, boy, could he play.

That same summer, I went to Malaysia with England for the World Youth Under-20 Championship, which was of some concern to Liverpool, who knew I was going to be playing a prominent part in the following League season and were worried about me not having a break. It was obvious that I would be playing every game for England in Malaysia. Amazingly, when I got to the Far East it felt as if everyone knew me. Not many of the Under-20s had played for their club side, but I’d played twice, which seemed to be enough to earn me all this recognition. We sailed through the group stage, winning all our games. I scored in a 2–1 win over Ivory Coast and a 5–0 thrashing of the UAE, and then got the only goal against Mexico – which meant that the first of my great confrontations with Argentina came before the 1998 World Cup, because it was them we had to face in the second round. We were 2–0 down by half-time. Though Jamie Carragher reduced that deficit just after the interval, we lost 2–1. I had to wait another 12 months for my first goal against one of England’s biggest rivals.

Really, after that defeat, from the end of June onwards, my mind was focused on the coming season with Liverpool. I couldn’t wait to get back on to the training ground. Up front for the 1997/98 campaign it was going to be me, Robbie and Karlheinz Riedle, who had signed that summer from Borussia Dortmund. Stan had moved on to Aston Villa, and it was reasonable to assume that Karlheinz wouldn’t be playing every game on account of his age. My expectation was that he and Robbie would be the starting strikers, but that August Robbie was struggling with an ankle problem so I ended up starting in the first eight games. In that particular pre-season I had been flying, scoring plenty of goals and playing really well. My confidence was up and I probably got ideas above my station, thinking, ‘I could be in from the start this year.’ But it was Robbie’s injury more than my own good form that opened the door. So there I was on 9 August, lining up for the first game of the new season – against Wimbledon again.

It was Incey’s debut in a Liverpool shirt, and he was soon being brought down by Vinnie Jones in the penalty area. The manager had already told me I’d be taking the penalties – which was an incredible honour, given my age. So, again, there I was, in the midst of all these Liverpool legends, being asked by Roy Evans whether I would accept one of the biggest responsibilities a manager can hand to a player. In baking conditions, my penalty went in OK, but over the next 10 or so games I was about to learn the difference between reserve- and youth-team football and the first eleven.

Below the senior team, I had been accustomed to scoring every week – often two or three at a time. I always, always look at my match and goal stats, and I can remember looking at my first 10 games for Liverpool and being worried that I wasn’t scoring an average of a goal every other game. I was playing well, but I wanted to score every week. I started to become disturbed. One advantage I had was that I’d been given a good grounding in the basic skills and duties of a striker. If you don’t have those you can’t progress to the higher levels. Take following in, for example. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred a good goalkeeper will gather an incoming ball and hold on, but if he spills it just once you’re going to end up with an extra goal. It’s all right knowing the theory, but you may have a hundredth of a second to react to an event and then turn it into an opportunity. It has to be second nature. Now, as soon as the leg goes back, before a team-mate has even thought about shooting, I’m already thinking about where I should be positioning myself. If it hits the post or the keeper, where will the ball go next? It’s about being one step ahead. The opposite’s true in front of our own goal. I just don’t have the instincts of a natural defender. If there’s a corner and I go back to mark an opponent, I might find their striker running straight past me on the way to goal. Logically, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to reverse my own thinking to second-guess an opposing striker when we’re defending our own line, but it’s easier said than done. I’ve had to work hard to improve my defensive capabilities.

In those early years I wasn’t always in full control of my aggressive streak. All top footballers have one, and as you mature you learn how to use it within the laws and to your own advantage. To begin with I was no angel on the pitch. I was no thug, either, but I understood the concept of self-defence. That September, playing for Howard Wilkinson’s England Under-18s against Yugoslavia in Rotherham, I was sent off for butting an especially annoying defender. The in-thing in those days was the sweeper system, which meant that there were permanently two man-markers on the two strikers. I don’t know why I reacted, because I was used to that system and all the extra difficulties that came with taking on defenders at international level; but I was just continually being booted and pulled back. Frankly, I don’t mind being kicked, because it happens to me every week, but I hate the shirt-pulling and the ‘girlie’ fouls. I prefer honest physical contact. If you’re going to foul me, boot me in the air. It’s equally irritating when you retaliate with a foul of your own and the defender rolls around on the floor. My head was exploding all the way through the game. Finally, my patience ran out, and after being fouled for the umpteenth time I rose to my feet close to the defender and pushed my head into his. Down he went, rolling around, and out came the red card.

I was so nervous about what my dad was going to say, because I had my whole family there that day to see me captain England. When I got sent off after 20 minutes half of them went home, though Dad stayed on to give me a lift. Not much was said in the car. I think he knew I would learn from it; he didn’t need to ram home a lesson I had already learned for myself. In life, I suppose, you have to do stupid things to know what stupid things are. And it’s better to learn at youth level than in the senior game.

But it wasn’t a one-off. Seven months later I was sent off at Old Trafford for a two-footed lunge at Manchester United’s Ronny Johnsen. I was going through a mad period. At Lilleshall, I had a six-month spell where I fell in love with the tackling aspect of football. I loved getting stuck in. I’d had enough of getting pushed around by defenders and decided to give some back, so I developed this passion for going in hard – sometimes unfairly. In December 1995, Keith Blunt had written a report that highlighted the need for me to control my aggression on the pitch. It read: ‘Michael has shown outstanding qualities as a front player both at school level and as an international player. He is a very good finisher and a highly competitive boy who only needs to control the occasional outbreak of temper to become an outstanding player.’ I still consider myself a tough player, but I no longer give back what I get. The Ronny Johnsen incident was a turning point for me. That was a head-down, lost-the-plot kind of day. Even an hour before the game I was sharpening my studs for battle. It was total red mist.

Ironically, at the time of the incident I had scored, we were 1–0 up and I was full of the right kind of adrenalin. Before the Johnsen tackle, I had jumped in on Peter Schmeichel and ended up hurting myself. I’d already been warned for a previous challenge on the United goalkeeper, but for some reason I remained determined to give him a dig. He reached the ball way before me, but I kept going and brought him down on top of me, which left six stud marks on my belly. That should have been my warning. Again, the ball had gone when I reached Johnsen, but I carried on with my challenge and the ref, Graham Poll, was totally right to show me the red card. Poll had warned me moments earlier: ‘Calm down or I’m going to have to send you off.’

I can remember feeling devastated as I took a shower, but still bubbling, still fierce. After about half an hour I felt my shoulders suddenly drop and all the air leave my body, as if I was coming down off an aggressive high. And then it hit me. I understood what I had done. I felt the tension drain. As I walked back down the tunnel to watch the second half, I saw Ronny Johnsen being taken off to an ambulance and felt truly awful. I was too embarrassed even to say sorry. It’s not an episode of which I’m proud.

A week after that England – Yugoslavia match in September I had a much happier experience: a goal on my debut in European cup competition, against Celtic in a 2–1 win in the UEFA Cup. Again, that was a special day for the Owen family and its Scottish branch. My dad was especially busy that week sorting out tickets for the Donnellys. My late uncle Terry was a mad Celtic fan and one of my biggest supporters. I didn’t comprehend what a big game it was until the warm-up. I’ve played around the world since, but the atmosphere at Celtic Park was up there with the best. The noise during the warm-up was the loudest I’ve known. When they played ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, both sets of supporters sang. It was ear-splitting, and my blood ran cold.

A month later I found myself training with the England senior squad for the first time – with no intimation, of course, that I was on a path to the 1998 World Cup. Although I seemed to be advancing in leaps, my first full season in that famous Liverpool shirt was all about consolidating a place in the team.

It was February 1998 before events developed a fierce momentum. I raced through seven days that shook my world. On 7 February I scored twice against Southampton, then made my England debut against Chile in midweek before hitting my first Premiership hat-trick, against Sheffield Wednesday. That was special to me, because having made my debut for England at such a tender age I couldn’t bear the idea of not playing well for my club the following Saturday. I had a morbid fear of people saying, ‘Oh, this international business has gone to his head.’ I just had to do well.

Ten days later, Robbie Fowler was ruled out for the rest of the season with knee ligament trouble following an innocuous challenge on the Everton goalkeeper. Losing your main goalscorer always knocks the stuffing out of a team, especially in the last two months of the season. The consequence was that I was given more opportunities to play first-team football, which improved my chances of being picked in Glenn Hoddle’s World Cup squad.

Liverpool eventually finished third in the Premiership, behind Arsenal and Manchester United. I would characterize it as an OK season. The year before we had finished fourth, so it seemed we were creeping back up with a good young team, terrific camaraderie and a fine manager in Roy Evans.

In those days it was easier to win Premiership games than it is now, when the standard is infinitely higher. Perhaps it’s down to diet awareness, better equipment, improved tactical organization; whatever the reason, it’s so much harder to win games nowadays. The Premiership isn’t hugely better in a technical sense; the improvement has been physical, in fitness, stamina and strength. The only break you get nowadays is when top clubs rest their best players in the cup competitions. Everyone these days has got someone who can change a game, whereas when I started out it wasn’t unusual to come up against a team who had two workhorses up front. Then, 18 League goals could win you the Golden Boot. Some of the leading strikers in those days wouldn’t be able to compete with a Ruud Van Nistelrooy or a Thierry Henry. I can compete with these guys, but I need a season without injuries to be fighting it out with them at the very top of the list.

I was joint-top scorer in the League in my pre-World Cup season with 18 goals, level with Dion Dublin and Chris Sutton and ahead of Dennis Bergkamp, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Andy Cole. I got 23 in all and shared the Golden Boot, as I did the following season. It’s only now that I understand the scale of that achievement.

As a striker, you look at the scoring charts and have a mini-competition inside your own head. It’s largely irrelevant what the others are doing, but still you don’t want your rivals to be out-performing you. Until the day I retire I’ll be looking at that chart, wanting to overtake anyone who sneaks in front. I’ll cherish those two Golden Boots, together with the PFA Young Player of the Year Award, which I won in the spring of 1998.

Even better, of course, I was off to the World Cup.