A young man with bad knees by the name of Michael Owen has been announced as the first winner of Alex Fergusons’ Golden Ticket to join Manchester United as a player.

The competition, started by the eccentric old manager at the Northern English Premier league club, is said to have been a means for the mysterious man to find a replacement for himself even though he has no plans to retire until he has died at least three or four times.

Michael Owen is reportedly a twenty nine year old man, recently made redundant, by a northern company in financial turmoil, who by his own admission was “expecting to be sent to Coventry, or worse Hull.”

Owen  said winning the Golden Ticket was something he had always dreamed of as he slaved away at his job in Newcatle which apparently mostly involved laying down and having his legs massged for a paltry £120,000 a week.

“I was just lying around one day thinking about how i wasn’t really bothered about training because my legs felt a bit tired. So i ate three Mars bars in a row instead, and on the third one i found the Golden Ticket, and, well, at that point i told Ashley to stick it up his cockney arse”

Miracle girl Bahia Bakari, who was the sole survivor of last weeks Yemenia flight that crashed into the Indian Ocean said yesterday on the subject, “i’m lucky, but i’m not Michael Owen Lucky.”