‘Best time of my life’: Manchester City fans reflect as treble win sinks in

T heo Michael Owen was celebrating his 21st birthday in May when he was involved in a life-changing car accident. With his neck broken in five places, the lifelong Manchester City fan spent four weeks in a coma in the Royal Preston hospital. Whiling away the hours in his hospital room while watching him slip in and out of consciousness, his family spoke to him about football and what would be the upcoming final of the Champions League.

They were worried his injuries were so severe he would never have the capacity to talk again. But on Sunday morning his lips moved, for the first time since the crash, and slowly he mouthed: “MCFC the treble”.

Manchester City’s meteoric rise over recent years culminated on Saturday night with a Uefa Champions League win, making them only the second English men’s team to complete the treble, after they scooped the Premier League and FA Cup trophies.

“He’s been obsessed with City his whole life,” said his father, Rob Owen. “[People] don’t understand the importance of football, what it means to us.”

For a club that has spent most of its history in the shadow of its storied neighbour Manchester United, it has been a long journey. The club has been transformed since Sheikh Mansour, an Abu Dhabi royal, bought the club in 2008, particularly since esteemed manager Pep Guardiola joined in 2016. The rest, they say, is history.

At the Etihad on Sunday, Man City supporters were some of the first to snap up new club shirts with “Champions of Europe” written in gold on the back above the number 23, for the year it all happened.

“It’s surreal. It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” said Tom Baird, who was born in 1999, the year City won the third tier playoff and were promoted to the second tier.

His fiance,