ON THIS DAY

Times have changed since the days when the best career an ex-pro footballer could hope for was to run a pub. Michael Owen earned a bob or two playing for some of the top sides in Europe and on retirement turned his attention to the racetrack as a owner and breeder of race-horses. And on Friday November 24th 2017 in the 12.15 at Ascot the 37-year-old former England international made his debut as a jockey. He lost over a stone in a month to make the weight and rode Calder Prince to second place in the Prince's Countryside Fund race. Afterwards he said he was 'chuffed' and likened it to playing in the World Cup quarter-finals against Brazil - I guess because England finished second in that one as well!

Southampton moved from The Dell to their new St Mary's Stadium at the start of the 2001/02 season, but they found it hard to win at their new ground. Their first five Premier League matches at their new home saw four defeats and a draw so - as you do - they brought in the Pagan Priestess Cerradwen 'Dragonoak' Connelly for help. She performed an exorcism at St Mary's, site of a Anglo-Saxon village called Hamwick, to banish a curse from the ground. Don't knock it because the very next day - Saturday 24th November 2001 - Southampton beat Charlton 1-0 to record their first victory at St Mary's in front of 31,198 fans which was the record home crowd for the Saints at any ground (since bettered). Magic or what?