Making a brief trip from Manchester to Belfast to talk about the Umbro Speciali boots, Manchester United striker Michael Owen was given the superstar treatment on his visit to the Northern Irish capital. From the moment he stepped off the plane, Michael was signing autographs and answering questions on his career and that massive move to the English champions. Luckily, amongst the police escorts, excited fans and autograph-hunting aeroplane staff, Umbro’s Emma Wilson was at Michael’s side, armed with questions from our Facebook and Twitter followers. During a brief 5 minute calm amongst the storm, she sat Michael Owen down and got his answers to your queries. Here’s what he had to say…

Q: (from Andy Hunns on Facebook) Who was his hero when he was growing up?

‘Gary Lineker, he was a great player and in the England Squad when I was growing up so a real inspiration.’

Q: (from Sean James Hindle on Facebook) If you get back into the England team who would be your favourite player also in the squad to assist you upfront?

‘It would have to be Wayne Rooney. He’s one of the top players in the world and it would be good to work with him at Man United and then take the relationship onto international duty .’

Q: (from Philip Wigham on Facebook) Was it a hard decision to make when you moved to Manchester United, knowing the rivalry between them and Liverpool?

‘No not really. Manchester United is a great club with some of the top players and coaches in the world with a great manager. It was an easy decision for my career. ‘

Q: (from Michael Cunliffe on Facebook) Have you ever messed with your football manager stats to make you the worlds greatest striker, and if not, why not?

‘No, sorry I don’t play it.’

Q: (from Bryan Chavez on Facebook) What’s it like training with players like Rooney, Scholes, Ferdinand, and countless others? Have they pulled any pranks on you yet?

‘It’s great training with the guys because as I mentioned, they’re some of the top players in the world, but they havent pulled any pranks on me…yet!’

Q: (from Eduardo Andres Henriquez on Facebook) What do you remember from the 1998 World Cup?

‘Everything. It was my first major tournament and I scored a couple of goals so its was a great time for me.  I loved every moment of it.’

Q: (from howieboss on Twitter) Michael, you have kids – in Toy Story why if Buzz Lightyear doesn’t think he’s a toy does he not talk when humans come in the bedroom?

‘Sorry I haven’t seen it… I’ve only every watched a handful of films ever as I find it hard to sit still for that length of time. I’ve seen most of the Rocky films, Cool Runnings and Heat…’
(We here at Umbro luckily have seen the film, and we reckon it’s because the other toys stop Buzz before he has chance to introduce himself to the humans. Glad to be of service.)

We’ve entered the final straight of our competition to customise a pair of the new Speciali boots, with this Friday October 9th the final day for entries. The competition has been a huge success so far, with over 5,000 entries – some good, some bad, and some just plain bizarre.

In case you’ve not heard of the competition yet (if not, where have you been?!), it’s a chance to customise a pair of the new Speciali boots with a design of your choice. A team of judges that will include Michael Owen, John Terry, Gael Clichy and designer Stuart Semple will pick out the best 11 designs, which will then be made into a pair of real boots for whoever designed them. Owen, Terry and Clichy will also wear a pair of the customised boots in an upcoming match (a bit of a tip – JT is unlikely to pick a pair that take the mickey out of his infamous slip in the Champions League Final, so don’t waste your time!).

If that sounds like your type of thing but you’re unsure of where to start, take a look at some of the entries here. Here’s some of the designs that have caught our eye recently:

This one’s called The Beans Knees, and we’re not sure what we prefer: the simple but fun design, or that terrible, terrible pun.

Another simple, fun design, this one is called Legacy. Look at the bend on that shot!

This design – Broken – would look great just after you’ve smashed one into the top corner. Not so great if you broke a metatarsal…

And finally, lots of people have found inspiration in Umbro’s double diamond logo, with this design, Diamond Swirl, adding a big splash of colour.

You can take a look at all the designs over at our Flickr page – let us know which ones you’d want to wear.

The Speciali competition to design your own boot is nearing three thousand entries (I think we’re actually on 2979 but I lost count).  That’s a lot, which is great.  But what we’ve loved is seeing how the submitted designs reflect different styles, reminiscent of skateboard decks and surfboards, from commentary on life and sport to plain weird s***.

As an example let’s look at some of the designs from the last few weeks:

‘Adebayor’ it’s called, can’t think why   Then there’s this one from the previous week:

This time Arsenal get the boot

Then there’s stuff like this, which is just genius.

And the earlier work inspired by Marvel comics (and probably coinciding with Disney’s purchase of them).

A nod toward the Football Casuals of the 80s here:

And a classic modernist piece, which Bridget Riley would have been proud of:

This is perhaps the most thoughtful design and says so much about the type of engagement most of us have with football now:

Brilliant.  And, lastly, what better way to go sliding into a 50-50 challenge than to take your fan club with you, the teenage crush etched to your sole:

You can submit your design to the competition. Umbro, Esquire and and UK designer Stuart Semple will be creating a shortlist from which John Terry, Michael Owen and Gael Clichy will be choose their favourite designs which Umbro will make for them to wear.

See the whole set on flickr and let us know which you like best.

Today we are launching a competition that can be considered anything but run of the mill. We are giving you the opportunity to customise the soles on a pair of Speciali boots. But this isn’t just something to do if you have a spare 30 minutes – the 11 designs judged best will be made for the designers to keep.

Oh, before I forget to mention… Amongst our highly esteemed judging panel there will be Michael Owen, Gaël Clichy, John Terry, Stuart Semple, the head of Umbro footwear design and an icon from the design world. And just in case that isn’t enough to get you motivated, Owen, Clichy and Terry will each pick a design to wear in a match.

Once uploaded, you can download your design as a wallpaper.  You can also share the designs in this flickr stream.

If you want to be in with a chance of being one of the winning designers head over to our umbro.com site for full details. Good Luck!

The latest editions, in out series of movies about the new Speciali boots see Deco and Pepe voice their opinions.  Deco used the boots in the Community Shield on Sunday, coming off the bench to assist Chelsea in their 4-1 penalties win over Manchester United.  If you are not familiar with Real Madrid’s Pepe, Soccerlens has a great blog here giving you the full lo-down on the Brazilian born, Portuguese player. 

You can see what other players have to say about the boots here:

Michael Owen
Gael Clichy
England Under 21′s
Amateur players
Talented Teens