Michael Owen: Off the Record

Boy wonders come and go, but Michael Owen has made the giant leap from sensational teenage star into one of the most consistent and respected strikers in world football - and he's still only 24 at the time of writing his new autobiography, Off The Record.  A child goal-machine in North Wales who went on to acheive at all levels of the game, Owen has seemingly been the star since he was in diapers. Warts and all autobiography is the modern standard of course, and while chapters in Off The Record are primarily concerned with simply correcting public stories about England abroad, Owen's gambling, his problems with one-time Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier, and the suicide of Owen's interior designer Mike Flynn, it is the frankness of acknowledging the underlying 'me first, team second' reality which makes the usual procession of achievements and frustrations really come alive.