Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Better than wins Roma insists Bow
“We knew they had to score two, which was a tough ask against our defence. It was quite comfortable.
“They didn’t have a lot of chances. Big Thommo (Billy Thomson) had some great games and made some big saves that season but I can’t really remember him having to be brilliant.
“Heggie (Paul Hegarty) said to me after it, ‘You should take this all in,’ and I was probably very naive and just thought this happens every year, we’ll do it again next year.
“I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I probably should have. It’s only when you look back.
“It’s probably one of the only times I can recall Jim coming round and shaking everybody’s hand in the dressing-room after the game.
“He really pushed us to our limits and got the best out of everybody. If he could see you had something he would get it out of you – how he did it was irrelevant.
“He was very guarded towards us but he went round and congratulated everyone individually.”
United went on to lose the final 2-1 over two legs against IFK Gothenburg, with a 1-0 Scottish Cup Final defeat to St Mirren sandwiched in between.
Bowman believes had they beaten the Buddies they might’ve gone on to secure the Uefa Cup, too.
He continued: “It shows how much the SFA helped us at the time! We played the Scottish Cup Final on the Saturday and the second leg of the Uefa Cup Final on the Wednesday.
“It was for the good of Scottish football we were trying to win it as well. I think if we’d beaten St Mirren, we would’ve had a lot better chance.
“There’s no way of saying we’d have definitely beat Gothenburg because they were a decent team but the St Mirren loss was the first down we’d had that season.
“Everything was on the up all the time, even with the amount of games we’d played that year.
“It was the first time the press had questioned our fitness because we’d played that many games.
“You’re never tired when you’re winning but as soon as you get beat that can quickly change.
“Personally, all the finals don’t mean anything if you don’t win. You want to have success by winning and savouring that.”