Blog : Footballers’ cars

Craig Cheetham

Michael Owen

Now, I’m not normally a massive fan of football… I appreciate it’s the most popular sport in the world, and certainly in the UK, but for me the ball’s the wrong shape and the players are generally a bunch of girls who like to writhe around in pretend agony and cheat quite a bit. Which, quite frankly, isn’t sport.

Plus, I grew up supporting Stockport County, so I’ve never really watched the game played with class or panache.

But I digress. If you asked the average footballer what his favourite car was, chances are you’d get something horrific as the answer. A Pagani Zonda, maybe, or a Range Rover Sport, but only in Pearlescent White with matching leather.

Hats off, then, to Michael Owen. To be fair, he’s always come across as one of the more rooted top tier footballers, possibly because he’s clearly of above average intelligence for those in his profession. When asked what dream car he’d like to get behind the wheel of as part of a Sunday Times and Shell promotion, Michael opted to revisit the first car he ever owned and loved – recalling, like the rest of us, how he had to beg his dad to help cover the insurance and ran it on a shoestring…

The car in question? A 1.8 VVC Rover 200 Coupe. The boy done good…

AROnline readers can find the full interview at this link and watch the accompanying video below.

 

Craig Cheetham

15 Comments

  1. Nice for a British footballer to have a soft spot for a Rover. The 200 Coupe is still a nice looking car.

    I would add that many of the Footballers we hear about also like their Range Rovers in black, with plenty of privacy glass and horrid black alloys…

  2. Agreed. Nice for a British footballer to have supported a product made in the UK. I, too, still have a soft spot for the Rover 200 Coupe, especially after driving a 220i version round Thruxton race circuit in 1995 and being told not to change up to a higher cog before 5,000RPM. It made me wonder why people raved so much about the 220 Coupe Turbo!

  3. Why did the presenter call the Rover Tomcat ‘boring’? I hate this sort of generalist view when it comes to cars from certain brands. No doubt he wouldn’t say the same about a VW Corrado.

    • Totally agree, it’s so annoying how people get all excited about some brick like dull block of over-rated German trash, yet skit, look down on and laugh at the likes of the Rover Tomcat which is a pretty, quick and classy car… How peoples’ attitudes have changed…

  4. Jake Humphrey is a brand ambassador for BMW so his comments naturally do not surprise me. I find it so sad that such so-called ‘experts’ take such a narrow-minded stance and have no real understanding of the workings of the motor industry itself, only perceived ‘image’.

    • Reading a very old motor magazine, a launch article on a new model ( cannot recall which one) the journalist meeting Issigonis, it was basically two engineers in discussion about chassis technology, roll centres etc, when do you ever read of such insights today, Jounalists are nowadays just scribblers, churning out shallow drivel about bluetooth connections and cupholders.

  5. If anyone like me looked and thought “it’s still quite a looker today” (the car that is!) having fond memories of owning a 200 hatchback in the late 90s, and then went off to eBay to see how much they go for… This actual car is up for sale at the moment. Only 38k miles on it, and looks mint. But then again, the seller does want £2.5k for it, so you’d hope it was in nice condition. If we didn’t already have two examples of “German trash” on the drive, I might have been tempted 🙂

  6. So the presenter had a little rib at a car which realistically was the worse chassis all of all R8 derivatives? Is that a crime! A nice little video that.

  7. Okay; footballists have a certain penchant for Range Rover Sports. They are still designed and built in Britain by all that is left of Rover- in Solihull! Where’s the problem?

  8. A nice car, together with the 800 coupe made for a cracking pair of coupes in the 90s.

    Remember the Calibra, 406, C70, 407 coupes?
    A shame that these kind of cars are no longer sold.
    A carmaker might wheel out a coupe concept as a ‘design language’ preview, only for their next SUV to have slightly similar headlights.

  9. Makes a change from the typical rich footballer’s car, often some extremely huge and vulgar SUV, or something that cost at least £ 150,000 to prove he’s richer than all of us, and something for his permatanned dyed blonde Celeb Big Brother wannabe WAG to swan around Wilmslow in. Sorry for the rant, but I absolutely can’t stand football, but Michael Owen has shown some taste by choosing a nineties Rover.

  10. I suppose to a top footballer a Range Rover is just a cheap runabout – just costs a couple of days wages……what can you buy with a couple of days of your wages?

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