Me having a helicopter during my time at Newcastle was a stick the fans enjoyed beating me with over the years.
I knew when I agreed to write this book that there would be a few issues I couldn’t avoid discussing. And that bloody helicopter was one of them!
The house we moved into had a fair bit of land. I immediately thought, that’d be perfect to land a helicopter. We could fly virtually house to house from our home if need be.
The whole idea of a helicopter was completely innocent and entirely designed to make it easy for Louise, Gemma and my parents to come up and see me and watch games – while still retaining the day-to-day relationships they all had back at home.
It was a family decision. In no way was I trying to be a flash prick by flaunting the considerable salary I was getting in the faces of the hard-working fans.
Nor, as some have speculated, was it because I didn’t want to live in Newcastle . That’s how it was taken, but none of that was the intention. I loved Newcastle and the people, and I still owned a house there until relatively recently.
The helicopter just made sense at the time. If I had time off coming up, I might call the pilot, Mark, twenty four hours in advance, to arrange to go home for a day and a half – particularly after Louise and Gemma moved back home permanently after two years when the time came for Gemma to start school.
It was a forty-five minute trip, usually with the wind at our back on the way east to Newcastle.
The funny thing is, not only did my family and I use this helicopter, various other players were very happy to have access to it too throughout my time at the club. Strangely, none of that made the headlines, or riled the fans.
I don’t know what I would have done without it but it’s just one of those things that, when things are going well, it doesn’t get mentioned. However, if anything goes wrong, it’s inevitable that it becomes a stick to beat you with. That’s really all there is to say about it.
Michael Owen: Reboot - My Life, My Time, published by Reach Sport, is on sale Thursday 5th September in hardback, ebook and audiobook.
