Biography
Promising full back Jack Dowen joined Hull City in June 1938 as makeweight for the transfer of left-back David Parker to Wolves. Dowen was immediately put in the first team by manager Ernest Blackburn, at right back for the first two fixtures then at left back for the remainder of the season in which he missed only three matches during March 1939 due to a thigh injury. Despite this consistency Dowen retired from the professional game in the 1939 close season and left the Tigers to become a football coach.
John Stewart “Jack” Dowen was born in Wolverhampton and was chosen to play for England Schoolboys in 1929, the pinnacle of a youth career that also encompassed playing for various regional representative XIs and Walsall Schoolboys. In his late teens he played for Courtaulds FC in the Wolverhampton Works League before being snapped up by Division One side Wolverhampton Wanderers in May 1932 and spending the 1932/33 season playing for the Wolves A team. Jack progressed to the Wolves Reserves side in the 1933/34 season and by the closing months of the season Wolves’ manager (and later Hull City’s manager) Frank Buckley was talking about Dowen as a future senior England international. He made his Division One debut against Derby County on Boxing Day 1934 and made six more starts at right back during March and April 1935 as Wolves narrowly avoided relegation. Jack made one further appearance in Old Gold against Middlesbrough in September 1935 but in October 1935 he was transferred to Division two side West Ham United. Dowen was unable to break into the Hammers’ first team, making just one first team start against Sheffield United in May 1936. In October 1936 he returned to Wolverhampton Wanderers and over the next two seasons he added four more first team appearances, taking his overall Wolves tally to 12 starts before joining Hull City in June 1938.
In July 1939 Dowen returned to Wolves for a third time, taking the post of assistant trainer – he was widely reputed, at 24 years of age, to be the youngest coach in the English professional game. When World War Two broke out Jack and his wife Elsie were living with Jack’s parents in Wolverhampton, with Jack working as a storekeeper as well as a football coach. During the war he served in the Army and resumed his playing career, turning out regularly for Wolves and also playing in military representative games for Northern Command and, oddly, a Scottish and Welsh XI. In May 1942 he played in both legs of the FA Wartime Cup Final for Wolves against Raich Carter’s Sunderland, with Wolves emerging victorious 6-3 on aggregate. He later guested for Leeds United and Darlington, and in October 1944 he returned for one more game for Hull City against Darlington, which the Quakers won 7-1. After the War he worked as a toolmaker for an aircraft manufacturing company in Norwich.
In July 1947 Dowen was appointed player-manager at Birmingham Combination side Stafford Rangers but he resigned from his post in December 1947 and soon rejoined the coaching staff at Wolverhampton Wanderers. He became a fixture in the Wolves backroom staff until his retirement in March 1982, displaying his fastidious disciplinarian tendencies as reserve team coach, apprentices’ co-ordinator, kitman and even caretaker manager for a few weeks in November 1968. His son, also Jack, was a youngster at Wolves in the mid-1950s and although he failed to make the first team like his father, he did have a long career outside the Football League throughout the 1960s, notably serving Hednesford and Bilston. Jack senior remained living in Wolverhampton for the rest of his life and died there in November 1994.
Details
Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 31 October 1914, Wolverhampton
Hull City First Game: 27 August 1938, Chester A (Division Three North), 23 years, 300 days old
Hull City Final Game: 29 April 1939, Oldham Athletic A (Division Three North), 24 years, 180 days old
Clubs
Wolverhampton Wanderers (1932-1935), West Ham United (1935-1936), Wolverhampton Wanderers (1936-1938), Hull City (1938-1939), Stafford Rangers (1947)
Hull City Record
Career: 43 apps, 0 goals
Jack Dowen| Season | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938/39 | 39 | 0 | 3 | 0 | – | – | – | – | 1 | 0 |