Owen in Canada

Owen Lee Hargreaves was born in Calgary, Canada on January 20, 1981. He is the youngest of three children born to Margaret and Colin Hargreaves who had emigrated to Canada at the start of the eighties from Great Britain.

Owen’s brother Darren was born in Wales while Neil, his other brother, was born in England. Owen is therefore the only family member actually born in Canada. He grew up in the south western part of Calgary.

Owen started school at the age of six. His first school days were spent attending Glenbrook Elementary, Andrew Sibbald Elementary and Nickle Junior High. He left the last of these at the age of fourteen. For the next two years he was a pupil at Lord Beaverbrook High School.

Owen first played football at the age of five. His first team were known as the “Peanuts.” Owen: “I really enjoyed playing in that team. We had a big picture of a peanut on the front of our shirts.” He inherited some of his talent for the game from his father who played in midfield for Bolton Wanderers in the English League. Both his brothers also played football. Darren was an excellent player but had a lot of bad luck with injuries.

It was his father who most keenly encouraged his football. Colin asked a friend of his, a coach, if his son could be given a try in his youth team called “Cedar Ridge Jacks.” Once the coach had seen Owen’s capabilities for himself, Owen became a regular in the under-12 outfit. At under-14 level the “Cedar Ridge Jacks” amalgamated with a team called Calgary Foothills FC. The new head coach of this team was Burk Kaiser, a one-time Canadian international, who introduced a new system to the team.

Owen played in a number of positions, primarily though, in attack. In that season he scored 23 goals for the under-14s. In the summer of 1994 he was the only player from that under-14 team to be called up to represent Alberta at under-15 level. Thomas Niendorf often helped the real coach of the side, Burk Kaiser, to prepare the side for tournaments in 1995. The Calgary Foothills duly won the national under-15 title the following year.

At about this time Harald Hoppe, a one-time junior coach at FC Bayern Munich, was visiting Thomas Niendorf. Harald Hoppe soon noticed Owen and made contact with FC Bayern. Following a trial in October 1996 Owen joined FC Bayern’s junior team in July of 1997.