Football Reloaded

Michael Owen may have come in for some stick in recent weeks, with the Guardian (amongst others) pointing out that his contribution of three passes (one mis-placed), a tackle and no shots doesn’t exactly make him the saviour of a floundering Toon side.  Newcastle fans have every right to complain about the lack of games — caused in no small part by some dreadful injuries whilst on tour with England — but he is doing something right. He’s getting closer to the fans!

Whilst this doesn’t sound too likely at first glance (he flies to work in his own helicopter for goodness sakes!), Michael is one of the first football players to start taking fanmail online at www.contacttheplayers.com. You can write to any football player, but Michael is the biggest name of the 50 or so who will actually respond!  Admittedly it costs a quid, but can you imagine the delight you would experience if, as an eight-year-old boy fixated with Manchester United, Peter Schemeichel had written back to you?!

Most football clubs have someone that will send a select few fans signed-photos, but I know from experience that not everyone gets a reply (its why I never quite got that attached to Eric Djemba-Djemba - though there are other reasons too of course!)

The service may well serve the large crowd across the world who would have benefited from the 39th game – supposedly the Malaysians and Indonesians, amongst others, simply can’t get enough of the Premier League.  And its probably quite cheap for them when the shocking pound and the usual postage charge are taken into account.

I know that I’ll be monitoring who else jumps onto the internet fan mail bandwagon, but well done to Michael Owen for actually getting involved, and giving his fans across the globe something to cheer about. I, for one, will be emailing him to tell him to get his scoring boots on!

“Michael Owen leads from the front in one very important category” was originally published at Soccerlens.com – Football News.