Michael McGowan Interviewed by Keith Wallace
August 2009
Michael McGowan says the experience of playing under Joe Miller at Clyde left him with an easy decision to make when the ex-Celtic winger approached him to sign for Dundalk. McGowan, who joined the Lilywhites during last month’s transfer window, worked with Miller during his three years at Broadwood Stadium between 2005 and 2008 and credits him as ‘one of the biggest influences’ on his career, and believes that he will prove to be the same in the progress of the town’s most-prized footballing asset, Tiarnán Mulvenna.
Turning Lilywhite
“I spoke to Joe in January and he said there was an opportunity over here and if the chance came about would I be interested in it,” McGowan explained when speaking to the DFC Magazine this week. “I had kind of made my mind up that I was going to leave Queen of the South, and if I wasn’t coming here, I would have went somewhere else, possibly England or Ireland, but I just didn’t want to play in Scotland any longer. I had a couple of offers, and I had a couple of offers back home as well, but since I had spoken to Joe in January, I had become a small supporter of the club. As soon as the league started in March, I was checking up on the internet, reading up on results and learning a bit of background to the club. To be honest, when I spoke to Joe in January and he said he was quite interested in getting me here, I had pretty much made my mind up that I wanted to come here and work with him again.
Miller influence
“Personally, I feel I was playing the best football of my career when I was working under Joe,” Michael continued, “so it was good to get back and work with him again, and obviously to meet Sean (Connor) and new players as well. It has given me back my hunger for the game. I would say that Joe has been one of the biggest influences on my career. I think the main thing from working with Joe, and most people probably don’t know this, is my position is actually a right-wing-back. When I was playing right-wing-back under Joe, because he was a winger himself, after training he used to work on things with me and we’d practice this and that, and he would add things to my game, which was good. Whereas other managers that I worked under, they were centre-halves or something and they weren’t going to pass anything on to me. I would say as well that another player to look out for is wee Tiarnán. I saw Joe working with him; I’ve learned a lot off Joe and I’m sure Tiarnán will as well. It’s good for a young boy like him who is still learning, and there’s not many better players than Joe Miller that you’re going to learn off.”
Stenhousemuir start
McGowan had spells at Celtic and Sheffield Wednesday before earning his first senior contract at Stenhousemuir at the age of 17. “In my younger days, I was at Celtic, and then I went down to England for a spell when I was 16,” he explained. “I was at Sheffield Wednesday and spent just under a season there. I got fed up then and went back home and went to Stenhousemuir when I was 17. Word got around when I went back home and he (John McVeigh) was the first manager to contact me, and he said there was an opportunity to train with the first team. I was young and obviously my first priority was to try to get into first-team football. I played there for a season-and-a-half and done quite well. But the manager that was there left and I just felt when the new manager came in – it was one of the players that was there – that it was going to turn out to be a bit of a joke, to be honest. I needed to go somewhere where I was going to get proper coaching.”
Dundee to Clyde
After his time Ochilview Park came to an end, McGowan stepped up to the Scottish Premier League when he landed a contract at Dundee in the middle of the 2003/04 season, before moving on to Clyde. “Jim Duffy called me and asked me to come up to training,” he recalled when asked how the move to Dundee came about. “He had seen me play a few times, so I went up there and trained with them. I done quite well and ended up signing there for a season. I was in the first team but I never managed to make any first-team appearances. I stayed there for just under a season and then I left them. I went to Raith Rovers then but I only played something like two matches for them. I spoke to Airdrie in the First Division and had sort of agreed to sign for them, but then I ended up joining Clyde. Graham Roberts was manager and Joe Miller was assistant at the time. I went along to the trial with Joe to see what it was like and I ended up there.
Broadwood exit
“It was brilliant,” McGowan continued when reflecting on his time at Clyde. “I had a great time there. I pretty much learnt all my trade there. I played under a few good managers – Joe Miller, Graham Roberts, Colin Hendry and John Brown for the latter part. It was a good place to learn your trade. I played something like 120 games in a row over three seasons. I was captain there and had a couple of caps for Northern Ireland at U21 level, so it was a really good time for me. It was a really good place to learn.” However, despite enjoying his time at Broadwood Stadium, Michael left at the end of 2007/08 as he felt he had overstayed his welcome at the club. “I had been there for three years and I was on something like my fifth manager,” he said. “After three years, you just become part of a place, if you know what I mean. It just got to that stage where I was playing and it was just a normal game every week. I wasn’t getting better, I was just playing a decent game every week and that was it – it was a case of showing up, playing a game and that was it. I just felt I needed a fresh challenge. I had three good years there, and I think to stay for a fourth year would have been taking it a bit too far. That would have been three or four years that I played in the First Division – it was just time for a change.”
Queen’s call
The Glasgow native then moved to Queen of the South, but it was a spell which didn’t go to plan. “I played against Queen of the South a few times, and I knew the assistant there,” Michael explained on the transfer. “When he heard that I wasn’t going to sign with Clyde again, he asked me to go there. Obviously they were in the UEFA Cup as well, so that was another factor. I quite enjoyed the season there but just some things didn’t go my way. That’s the way it is in football. At the start of the season, I was playing well, and I think in my first six games I got ‘Man of the Match’ in four of them, and I felt I was doing really well. But it just seemed to go downhill after that. Some games where I thought I should have been playing, the manager wasn’t playing me. When I confronted him about not playing, he wasn’t too happy, and it was just sour grapes from then on. I got my head down and I was working hard in training, and I found at the end of the week that I still wasn’t involved in games. I was a bit upset that way, but everywhere I’ve been, I’ve learned a bit, and I learned a bit that season, although I didn’t play as many games as I wanted to play. I still feel I’m a better player for being there. You can only thank the manager for that. I wouldn’t leave a club on a bad note, and I still get on well with the manager and I still speak to him. Things like that happen in football, you just need to get on with it.”
No regrets
McGowan also failed to play a part on the European stage. “I was on the bench in the games,” he said. “That was the other disappointing thing, not to play in those games, but it was an adventure. I was there, and although I didn’t play, it was an experience, and hopefully that’s something I can experience here in Dundalk as well.” Despite a disappointing time at Palmerston Park, though, McGowan does not regret his decision to leave Clyde. “No, not really,” he said. “As I said, I had three good years there and I played a lot of games. I think Clyde’s biggest downfall was themselves. When I played there, it was my second season with Joe, and we had one of the best sides about, but the problem there was that the Board’s ambition didn’t match the team’s ambition and Joe’s ambition. I done everything I could with Clyde, and the next step for me was to try to win things. They weren’t up for that challenge, and I dare say that’s why Joe left as well. There’s not much you can do.”
Living the dream
Then came the aforementioned interest from Miller, and leaving his homeland for the first time certainly wasn’t an issue for the versatile 24-year-old. “I haven’t got a problem with that,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s a sacrifice you need to make. It’s the same as any other job. If you want to follow your ambitions, sometimes you need to get up and leave home and go somewhere else to follow your dream, so it’s not a big problem. I’m enjoying my time here. There’s great support here, something which I’m not used to back home, at Clyde anyway. We were only averaging 1,000 a week or something like that, but you come here and the atmosphere coming out of the tunnel in games and seeing that many people there, waving flags and shows on at half-time and that, it shows you it’s a really good club and obviously the town loves the club as well, which is a big bonus. I don’t think there’s a better feeling than coming out to Dundalk fans, in away games too. Even in Sligo last weekend, we had a good crowd even though it’s a three-hour journey away. It shows their commitment.”
Connor compliment
McGowan also complimented manager Sean Connor, who he is working under for the first time. “I’ve got to know Sean, he’s a good guy as well, he looks after the players,” Michael said. “The few players that I spoke to, like Chrissy Turner and big Burnsy, players that have been with Sean at a few clubs, haven’t got a bad word to say about him. And the time I have been here, I haven’t got a bad word to say about him either. He’s just working away and nobody outside the club knows the amount of work that he has to do here. The players he’s trying to get in and the ambitions he’s got, it matches the ambitions I’ve got, and I think it’s starting to rub off on the team.” One of those ambitions is to taste some silverware this term, and Michael is confident that Dundalk can keep their FAI Cup hopes alive tonight at the expense of Bohemians. “Definitely, I don’t see why we can’t beat them,” he said. “The last time we played Bohs, my registration wasn’t just clear in time but I managed to watch the game. Bohs are one of the best teams in the league, they pass the ball well and they’ve got good players, but as everybody knows, cup games are just a one-off, so it’s whoever the best team is on the night. Hopefully, Bohs come here maybe a bit complacent because they beat us the last few times. If they come here with the attitude that they just have to show up to win, then we’ll take them by surprise.”
