Martin Keown is a household name in English football but it turns out we’ve been saying his name wrong for decades.
The Arsenal legend has been a big name for 40 years having made his first team debut on loan for Brighton during the 1984/85 season.
In that time Keown has dominated English football, picking up plenty of major honours on the way, but it turns out that fans and pundits alike haven’t been saying his name in the way his Gaelic family intended.
Speaking to Hayters, Keown said: “Yeah, Ke-owen is the pronunciation.
“My father worked hard and I kind of gave up on because it was so difficult to get people to say the word.
“The Irish just say it and it rolls off the tongue for their dialect, but for English people to say it…
“Jon Motson in his wisdom, god rest his soul, spoke to me before one of the first games he did with me and such was his preparation, he asked ‘how are we saying this’.
“He’d heard Keown and Ke-owen and we decided that Keown was perhaps the most sensible way to go so that’s what we did.”
Keown was born in Oxford to Irish parents, meaning he could have represented either England or the Republic Of Ireland at international level.
The defender ultimately opted to side with the Three Lions and went on to achieve 43 caps for his country.
Enjoying time with Aston Villa, Everton and Arsenal, Keown won three Premier League titles and three FA Cups.
He also played a key role in the Gunners’ legendary ‘Invincibles’ season in 2003/04 in which they went the entire Premier League campaign unbeaten.
2
Since retiring, Keown has moved into broadcasting and is a regular on talkSPORT where he is among the most successful pundits in the game.
