Star’s wounds run much deeper than defensive Owen’s

Jun 28 2009 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

IT’S that long since he scored a goal, it’s no wonder he’s getting defensive.

On around £105,000 a week, it’s equally little surprise that he struggles for perspective.

And if the state in which he left Newcastle United didn’t warrant much of a mention in his “woe is me” speech this week, the fate of Newcastle Blue Star won’t have made the slightest blip on Michael Owen’s radar.

Shame that, as Star have crashed to earth for want of what Owen probably spends a year on helicopter fuel.

Shame. One of the few things Owen doesn’t have.

At roughly the same time as he was crying foul against the suggestion – how dare we? – that he is past it, Blue Star passed away.

The last rites were performed on Newcastle’s 69-year-old “other” club in a small ante room at FA headquarters in London.

True, the circumstances of Blue Star’s demise, triggered by a demand that they repay a ground improvement grant, are contentious.

Having received £61,000 to improve their old Wheatsheaf HQ, then moved to Kingston Park, they were widely seen as being bang to rights.

Yet their defence – that the ground switch was necessary to satisfy the football authorities’ wish that they move up to the UniBond League – was stout.

Not stout enough, as it turned out.

I can only imagine the desperation with which Bob Morton, the club’s erstwhile director of football, fought that losing battle in Soho Square, let alone his desolation in defeat.

And whatever your views – if any – on Blue Star, you can be certain Morton’s wounds run far deeper than those which prompted Owen’s latest pipsqueak protest.

If debts exist to be repaid, what does not-so-young Michael owe Newcastle United?

For starters, how about what they have paid him in the five weeks since he pulled on a black and white shirt for the last time (unless Fulham dramatically improve his career prospects by coming in for him, that is)?

By my reckoning, just four or five days’ worth of that money-for-nothing would have saved Newcastle Blue Star.

That’s not to say they were deserving of charity, rather that Owen deserves no sympathy.

Responding to his critics, he said: “There is a lot been said and written about me in the last few weeks and not many nice things, but that’s life.

“I’ve got skin thicker than 99.9 per cent of the population and I have got used to it.”

Thick-skinned? If I didn’t know better, I’d suggest it takes someone pretty shallow to trouser 400-odd grand a month from a relegated club AND come out with a statement like that.

“It’s not like I’ve murdered anyone,” he added. No, lad, you were just an accessory to the murder of 50,000 or so Geordie dreams.

I’ve defended Owen in the past – backed him when others, during any of his seemingly innumerable injury absences, questioned his motives and queried his commitment to the Newcastle cause.

But not now. Not after relegation. Not during a recession. And not when he can glibly issue statements like “I’m still obviously contracted to Newcastle. I’ve still got weeks, a month or whatever left, I’m not sure”.

How those words will ease the pain of the 120 club staff whose jobs formed part of the price of relegation.

Talk about easy come, easy go.

Owen’s preposterous sales brochure describes him as an “ambassador”. But for what? The mercenary values of the modern game?

Certainly, that brochure – and Owen’s words – lack the Corinthian spirit which once sustained clubs like Newcastle Blue Star.

Reality has bitten at Kingston Park, and bitten deep.

When will it penetrate Owen’s thick skin?