Geordie boy plays Cards right
Dowson grew up with Gazza but now dreams of a giant-killing
ALAN DOWSON is so wrapped up in football, he is not even sure what job his wife does.
“I know the company she works for, but as for what she does, I haven’t got a ScoobyDoo – and we’ve been married for 13 years!” confesses the Woking manager in his thick Gateshead accent.
Dowson is so immersed in Woking he sometimes sleeps on the couch in his office, is first into the National League South side’s Kingfield ground at seven in the morning and last out, often at 11 o’clock at night. As we chat in his small office, the cleaners come bustling in and out. The Cards’ boss talks with every one.
The Surrey club’s ground, tucked away opposite the leisure centre, is a hive of activity with a steady stream of people coming to get tickets for Sunday’s big game, the visit of Premier League Watford in the FA Cup third round on Sunday afternoon.
An hour in Dowson’s company flies by as he rattles off the tales. How he grew up in the same street as Paul Gascoigne and would play football with the future England international round the back of their houses.
“We used to play for Redheugh Boys Club. We had a four-mile drive to the club. I’d end up in the boot, because I was the youngest,” Dowson says. “We used to play a game called Doors in the back lane. That would be Gazza’s door there and mine there and you had to hit it. It would last for hours.”
But while Gascoigne’s career took off, Dowson endured a struggle to make it in the professional game.
“I was not as good as Gazza or some of the others, but I had the biggest desire to be a player,” he says. “They went off, I was left behind. I was devastated. But once I got my head around it, I was doing sixmile runs every day.”
In and out of school, a teacher persuaded him back and helped him write letters to every club in the country asking for a trial. Millwall took him up and he ended up living in digs at the age of 15 off Old Kent Road.
“One day it was my turn to do the cooking in the digs,” he says. “I did the potatoes, I peeled them, put them on. The landlady says she can smell burning. I didn’t realise you had to put water in as well!”
The teacher who helped him, John Brabban, got in touch recently when he saw Dowson on the BBC at the draw for the third round. The Cards manager, whose side knocked out League Two Swindon on their own ground to earn their Watford glamour clash, recalls: “Mr Brabban was excellent for me at school. He saw the draw, remembered, and wrote me a Christmas card.
“I had lost touch. I was more chuffed about that card than winning the Swindon game. He’s getting on a bit now so I doubt he will come down.”
Dowson made only one appearance for Millwall but was so keen he once played a reserve game and a youth game on the same day for the Lions.
He eventually joined Fulham on loan, moved to Bradford and then Darlington before knee problems ended his fulltime career aged 24. He came back south to play for Slough, joined Gateshead, and ended up at Walton & Hersham, where his managerial career began.
With his professional playing days behind him, Dowson ended up living above a kebab shop with no carpet, working as the Walton & Hersham Football in the Community Officer and playing part-time.
His playing career was finally ended when he broke a leg – after which he played on for another 20 minutes.
Taking over as the club’s manager in 2004, he won promotion with Walton, did the same with Kingstonian and took Hampton & Richmond to
the National League South play-offs last season before joining relegated Woking in the summer, taking the Cards to second in the National League South after losing just one of their last 13 games. Dowson’s Gateshead accent is still incredibly thick, despite some 20 years in Surrey. He says: “At the school where I worked they had a parents’ meeting. One parent pointed at me and said, ‘As for that German fella!’” Dowson’s famous assistant is Sky commentator Martin Tyler. “When Martin speaks everyone listens normally,” he says. “When I speak they are craning forward trying to understand me!”
Woking are no strangers to cup runs, knocking out Second Division West Brom at the Hawthorns in 1991. Under Geoff Chapple, now a director, they also beat Barnet twice, Millwall and Cambridge. Some of the 1991 team, like hat-trick hero Tim Buzaglo, will be at Sunday’s game.
Dowson, whose aim is to manage in the Football League, says: “This club is all about the people. If you haven’t got them, you haven’t got a club.”
I wasn’t as good as Gazza and others but I had the biggest desire