He may no longer play for United,

but we have managed to get our grubby

little hands on the archived, top-secret,

investigations he undertook while he was

still under our employment...

At Manchester United – without regular football as a distraction – Micky Owen was offered the opportunity to sharpen his detective skills. Along with his spirit guide Eric he provided the club and SAF with something. Answers on a postcard if you’ve managed to work out what exactly that is yet.

It was a typical week with my birthday coming up. I’d disconnected the land line, cancelled my mobile contract, deleted my email accounts and attached an automated tweet generator to my Twitter account. Strange things those … I popped in all my interests, likes and dislikes and then the idea is that it generates tweets for you based on your profile data. Well the one I subscribed to must have been broken because all it seems to tweet is Twitpics of a wall covered in wet paint????! As a final resort I’d hidden myself and my family in a cave thousands of miles away from civilisation. SAF had another thing coming if he thought I was going to be doing any detective work on or around MY Birthday. I mean what with it being MY birthday and all.

Two weeks passed and the drinking of each other’s urine aside and the gingivitis contracted from said drinking of urine, and the onset of periodontitis not withstanding, I was having a not as crap as it could have been had Brett been bothered to add anything else in to this paragraph birthday. Eric who’d taken us out to the wilderness under the cover of darkness had got me a ‘sicknote’ for a present which I thought was quite possibly one of the weakest visual gags I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing. He could have got me something more subtle like a … erm … like a … like a … erm … Oh whatever, it’s still really lame. “It’s not just Hargo who can read your inner-monologue Micky” bellowed Eric, before turning around lifting the collar on his shirt, “Au revoir”! And with that he disappeared. Without Eric here we had no idea where we were or how to get home. “I know where we are”, said the wife, “… up the creek!” What?! What’s with all the really poor level of jokes this month, come on it’s clichéd tosh. Eric reappeared from behind the cloud and whispered in my wife’s ear. “Oh, he said that did he?!” she replied … then everything went black.

I was making my way down the touchline, it was the last minute of the Champions League, no wait, Europa League final and my team mates were calling for a cross, “Micky!!!”, Micky!!!!” Micky … MickyMicky…”I was shaken awake by SAF. As I came round it was apparent I was in a hospital ward. “Micky!” said SAF, “Wait, I can explain”. I clenched my entire body, surely he’d be kicking a boot at my eyebrow or something any second. “You don’t need to explain anything Micky” he replied. “What are going to do to me”, I whimpered. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Micky…”, “Yes…” ,“ I’ll tell you right now…” ,“Go on…” ,“I’m going to…” ,“Uh huh…” , “I’m going to … congratulate you!!!”, “Okay make it quick … wait … what??? Congratulate me??!!”

At that moment Berba burst into the room. “There you are Micky!” exclaimed Berba. “So glad you are okay after the little accident during our case … (“Uh?”) I’ve rapped everything up”. SAF cut back in, “Yeah you two are going to be quite some team, I can’t believe you got to the bottom of that one. I though I’d set you the most difficult case imaginable. The way you handled it what with all the stuff it involved, Jeez … I mean really WELL DONE!”

When SAF finally left, cus Phelan needed feeding, I turned to Berba, “What was all that about? What case? Who are partners? What’s going on?” “Ha, ha! Micky, you’re so adorable … we are now partners, SAF thinks I’m better suited to being a quasi-naive fictional detective than being a really, really good footballer. I had one of those devices that self destruct fitted to the case notes … you know the one you tried to get working. I can show you how it works if you like. Anyway, the case has now been erased and I’m not allowed to divulge any information. You know the detective code. I knew you wanted to celebrate your birthday in peace so I covered for you. Whenever I went to a meeting I just took a wall covered with wet paint on it as your replacement. No one seemed to notice.” “Well, what can I say, Berba, thank you … partner!” We high-tenned albeit in a slightly different way to the way me and Hargo do it, to avoid copyright infringement.

 “There is just one more thing, Micky”, said Berba. “Yes?” “I haven’t said it yet, you know … (I nodded)

Case Closed!

 Okay, so if what Berba has told me is right then the second you finish reading this sentence this document will self-destruct. It hasn’t done it … has it? Ruddy thing! Berba!! Berba!! Okay, you’re just going to have to dispose of it yourself. I don’t know, tear the internet into little pieces and eat it if you have too.

Keep ‘em peeled!