Michael Owen: Off the Record - Michael Owen

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to being teased as a ‘turncoat’ when he goes back to his old club.) I called in on Oldham and Norwich too, and I trained with Wrexham and Chester because they were local. I did quite well at Manchester City, whose youth development officer had seen me at the early England get-togethers. I went away with City for a week for a tournament in France, which we won. Again, I can’t remember ever meeting the manager, though their representative was the most persistent: he called Dad often to invite us to City games.

      So why did Liverpool stand out from this crowd? Three names: Steve Heighway, Hughie McCauley and Dave Shannon. They were the three youth coaches. I’d worked with them on and off for several years before decision day and I liked them all. Steve Heighway had a huge influence on me and is still at the end of the line for a chat. We have a special bond. My parents think the world of him, too. He’s dead straight with the mums and dads of boys at the Liverpool academy. He would never make any false promises. My parents liked that. My academy experience also meant that I was never nervous when I walked into a Liverpool dressing room. I knew all the lads. I like routine and I hate being knocked out of my stride, so I just thought, ‘Why change?’ Another factor was that I’d been away at Lilleshall for two years, and I faced the prospect of having to stay away from home again if I joined a club other than Liverpool. As much as they wanted me to live in club accommodation, they were willing to sign me on the basis that I could commute from home.

      I suppose I was fortunate to escape the cycle of grotty pocket-money jobs that go with being a teenager. I was away from home from the age of 14, and when I returned I went straight into being a full-time YTS trainee on £42.50 a week. In that sense I was a full-time footballer from a very early age, and £42.50 would just about see me through so I didn’t go out hunting for spending money. Thanks to Mum and Dad, I was used to not spending my cash on frivolous things.

      When it was time to leave Lilleshall, I received my international cap from Jimmy Armfield, one of the elder statesmen of English football, at a graduation ceremony which dispersed our band of brothers across the professional game. I was now ready for life at Liverpool. But another big change was on the way: the full blossoming of my relationship with Louise Bonsall.

      We lived about 15 doors away from each other on our estate in Hawarden, which was brand new but not at the mega-expensive end of the market. All the children of the same age from those houses became good friends, and Louise is just two months younger than me. We went to the same infant, junior and then secondary schools. Louise’s dad, John, thought of me as the cheeky kid who was always wandering round the estate with a ball under his arm.

      People always try to put a date on when Louise and I started going out together, but this begs the question: when you’re a kid, what does ‘going out’ really mean? When you’re eight, if you kiss someone on the cheek you’re supposedly going out with them. When I was a child, my whole focus was football, so I didn’t have an eye for a girl until I was 13 or 14. Then, of course, your interest in the opposite sex starts to get a bit more serious, and it was then that Louise, through a friend, asked me to ‘go out’ with her. I really don’t know why I said this, but I told her mate, ‘I’ll think about it.’ Maybe I wanted to be chased even more. I had every intention of saying yes because I fancied her right the way through. I’m not sure exactly what her friend relayed to Louise, but, as I discovered later, it was positive.

      I heard nothing from her for a week, but during that time Louise must have assumed we were an item. I was playing football in the playground one day and can only have been entranced by the game because all I heard of Louise shouting my name was a faint ‘Michael’. I turned round immediately to see her walking away in a huff, so she must have called my name a few times. I was a bit too embarrassed to chase her, so I carried on with my game. Later, I spoke to her friend and said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t even know we were meant to be going out with each other.’ She replied, ‘Don’t worry. Forget about it.’ And that was that. Things didn’t progress any further before I went off to Lilleshall. If it had, maybe it would have been difficult for me to be away from home for two years.

      When I came back permanently I spotted Louise in the local pub when I was there with my brothers. This time I asked a friend of mine to find out whether she was still interested in me. When the answer came back as yes, I went over and asked for her number. But within a couple of days I had to go to Ireland on a pre-season tour with Liverpool. I called her from there, and was very nervous; I just about managed to arrange a date for when I got home. By the time I returned it was quite late, so I had to drop the idea of taking her to a bar in Chester – which I’d come up with in an attempt to seem cool. We went to the local instead and had a nerve-racking chat for an hour before I drove her home and went into the house to carry on the conversation. That’s when we relaxed and began to speak more freely.

      Louise was in college at that time, and then she went to work for MBNA bank whose headquarters are in Chester. She stopped working a couple of months before Gemma was born. On 14 February 2004 we became engaged, on Valentine’s Day, which also happens to be Louise’s birthday. We had no fixed date or venue in mind because my football commitments make things complicated. A brief window in the summer is the only clear time for us to get married – preferably in a non-championship year.

      Our relationship has been a stable element throughout my adult life. If you start to become a man at 17, then I’ve been with Louise ever since I began that process. She was with me when I had nothing, so I’ve never had the problem that some prominent people have of wondering about my partner’s motives for being with them. The question ‘Is she here just because I’m famous?’ has never arisen because we go back such a long way. We can look each other in the eye and know we’re together for all the right reasons. It’s sad even to have to mention that element, but I do so because it’s one of the many advantages we have.

      A lot of people treat me differently just because of who I am. Some of them fall over themselves to be friendly. That’s the way society is. In football and life you encounter a certain amount of falseness. With your girlfriend, your family and your friends, that’s never a problem. A lot of famous people marry other famous people because they understand the process of living in the public eye. Fortunately, Louise and I met before I achieved a high profile, and this was one of the foundations of our marriage in the summer of 2005.

      One of the inconveniences we’ve had to put up with is reporters knocking on Louise’s door asking if we are ever going to get married, or split up, and offering her enormous sums of money to spill the beans. I don’t think my dislike of celebrity will ever change. I’d be happy if I could be left alone for the rest of my life. I’m content to get on with my job and my life with Louise, Gemma, my family and friends. I don’t really like the flashing lights, the arm round the girlfriend for the cameras. It’s not my scene.

      Having a steady girlfriend has also helped me in my playing career. For a young footballer, the pitfalls start to open up at around 17 or 18. A lot of my time around those ages was spent with Louise. I’m not saying I would have been out drinking or doing things I shouldn’t have been, I just know that I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Stability has certainly helped me as player.

      In my eyes, Louise is so down to earth. Like me, she has no desire to be in the limelight. We’ve moulded ourselves around each other. She’s wonderful with Gemma and great to be around – really good company. She has no desire to compete with anyone in terms of fame or wealth and would never show off or boast about new clothes or possessions. I’d like to think that if she was in the players’ lounge talking to the family of someone who had just joined Liverpool, they would come out saying, ‘I’ve just met Michael Owen’s girlfriend and she’s so down to earth. She really made me feel welcome.’ She would go out of her way to make anyone feel included. And she would speak to everyone on the same level. I’d like to think I’m like that as well. I’d like to think that I am everything Louise is.

       4 Liverpool: Sugar and Spice

      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.

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