The diagnosis that brought a legend to his knees

Michael Owen has spoken publicly and emotionally about one of the hardest things he has ever faced, not a missed penalty or a trophy lost, but the moment he learned his son James had an incurable eye condition. James Owen, now 20, was diagnosed with Stargardt disease at just eight years old. It is a rare inherited disorder that causes progressive central vision loss, leaving James clinically blind and describing his sight as reducing everything to a blur whenever he looks straight ahead.

The revelation comes through Owen's new Amazon Prime reality series, 'Meet the Owens', which gives viewers a window into the private world of the Owen household, following Michael, his wife Louise, and their four children across a year of family life. It is clearly a far more vulnerable side of the former striker than most supporters have ever seen.

"I remember stopping in the car and just bursting out crying"

Owen, now 47, held little back when describing the moment James received his diagnosis. Speaking in the documentary, he said: "When he first got diagnosed, I remember stopping in the car, three or four times, and just bursting out crying, thinking, 'What's his life going to be like?' I just wanted him to not feel sorry for himself, wanted him to have a positive outlook on life."

There is also the weight of guilt Owen has carried about the hereditary nature of the condition. He addressed that directly too, saying: "We made James, and I don't think I'd be normal if I didn't put myself in the mirror and think, 'It's down to us that he's got this eye condition', so I did feel guilty for a little while and could say I still feel guilty now but you look at the positives with him and the guilt sort of evaporates."

James himself has described the condition as "almost like a ticking time bomb", acknowledging there is a possibility he could one day lose his sight entirely. The fact that he speaks about it with what his father calls an ability to laugh at himself says something about the character he has clearly developed.

A future built beyond football

James had harboured ambitions of following his father into professional football, which makes the story all the more bittersweet. That dream, as Owen put it, "was dashed quite early". But what has emerged in its place is a young man carving his own path, currently working in trading while taking on a growing role at Michael's horse racing stables, Manor House.

Owen is openly hopeful that James will one day take the reins of that business. "He's been more exposed to Manor House, and ideally, he comes and works for me as I'd love that," Owen said. "It would be lovely to watch it grow together and for him to have an influence on that." The pride in those words is unmistakable. "James's ability to laugh at himself is just the most endearing thing in my world. Little things like that bring us incredibly close together."

The Liverpool years he will always cherish

For all the complicated feelings that many Reds supporters still hold about Owen's career choices after leaving Anfield, the documentary contains a reminder of what Liverpool meant to him. He scored 158 goals for the club between 1996 and 2004, winning six major trophies, before departing for Real Madrid. His feelings about that period are unambiguous.

"The happiest years of my life are when I was at Liverpool," he says in the show. "I was playing well, scoring goals, and we won loads of trophies. I was the Michael Owen I like to remember." Whatever your view on what came after, those words will resonate with anyone who watched him at his breathtaking peak in a red shirt.

All six episodes of Meet the Owens are available to Amazon Prime members from 28 August, and if the extracts shared so far are any indication, it promises to be a far more raw and human portrait than most celebrity documentaries dare to be.