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Iain Dowie
Personal information
Full name	Iain Dowie
Date of birth	January 9, 1965 (age 42)
Place of birth	Hatfield, England
Height	6 ft 1 in (1.85 m)
Nickname	Rocket man Monica
Playing position	Striker Manager
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1983-1985 1987-1988 1988-1991 1989 1991 1991-1995 1995 1995-1998 1998-2001	Cheshunt Hendon Luton Town → Fulham (loan) West Ham United Southampton Crystal Palace West Ham United QPR	034 0(2) 00? 0(?) 066 (16) 005 0(1) 012 0(4) 122 (30) 019 0(6) 069 0(9) 031 0(2)
National team
1990-2000	Northern Ireland	059 (12)
Teams managed
2002-2003 2003-2006 2006 2007-	Oldham Athletic Crystal Palace Charlton Athletic Coventry City
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Iain Dowie, (born January 9, 1965 in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England), is a football manager and coach, and former professional football player and Northern Ireland international. He was appointed manager of Coventry City on 19 February 2007.

Contents 1 Playing career 2 International career 3 Management 3.1 Oldham Athletic 3.2 Crystal Palace 3.3 Charlton Athletic 3.4 Coventry City 4 Trivia 5 Managerial stats 6 References 7 External links

At 16 Dowie was rejected by Southampton and went to the University of Hertfordshire to study for a Master's Degree in engineering. On completion he became an employee of British Aerospace, whilst keeping up football at non-league level playing for Cheshunt alongside his brother Bob. He left Cheshunt to build up his fitness and signed for Hendon.

While playing for Hendon, Dowie was spotted by Luton Town who snapped him up. An old-fashioned centre-forward, he then moved in quick succession to Fulham (a brief loan spell), and West Ham Utd

He then moved to Southampton, where he had over 100 appearances. He then moved back to London with Crystal Palace, which after they were relegated meant another spell at West Ham, and finally Queens Park Rangers, where he ended his days playing in defence, and being player-manager of QPR's reserve side.

Although Dowie was born in England, his father was born in Belfast and Dowie scored 12 goals and gained 59 caps for Northern Ireland.

After retirement from playing, Dowie then became assistant manager of Oldham. However, following the dismissal of manager Mick Wadsworth, Dowie became manager and led the club into the Second Division play offs, at the end of the 2002-03. Unfortunately financial trouble hit Oldham and Dowie lost much of his first team squad, after battling along for a few months with a severely depleted squad he then moved onto Crystal Palace.

At Christmas 2003, Dowie was appointed manager of Crystal Palace, inheriting a squad with low morale and in nineteenth place in the First Division. However, under his leadership, the club went on an impressive run that included 17 wins from when he took over, until the end of the season, enabling the club to finish in sixth place in the Nationwide First Division, just scraping into the Division One play-off places. This feat was attributed to complete change in the atmosphere and training regime at the club, including a tougher disciplinary regime, introduced by Dowie. After beating Sunderland in the semi-final, on penalties, the club beat Dowie's former club West Ham by a single goal in the final for a place in the Premiership. Unfortunately, the club lasted only one season there, being relegated on the final day of the season.

Dowie, however, impressed as a manager. But he remained at Palace when the club was relegated to the Championship despite rumours that he was approached by other Premiership clubs to take over. The only actual report of a club approaching Palace to speak to Dowie was when Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric approached Simon Jordan (chairman of Palace) to speak to Dowie, in November 2005. Jordan refused.

In 2004, when discussing Crystal Palace's start to the Premiership season, he coined the word "bouncebackability" in discussing their ability to bounce back from the adversity during their Division one season and their habit of conceding early goals. This word gained cult popularity within the footballing world and particularly with the Sky Sports TV program Soccer AM. In 2005 it was included in the Collins Dictionary and has subsequently been used in a promotional campaign for UK Fostering.

Dowie left Crystal Palace by 'mutual consent' on 22 May 2006 following discussions with Chairman Simon Jordan.^[1] Jordan was however infuriated when just eight days later, on 30 May 2006, Premiership Charlton Athletic unveiled Dowie as their new manager.

Jordan then issued Dowie with a writ, claiming that he had misled him about his reasons for leaving Crystal Palace.^[2] Dowie, however, insisted this was not the case, and was publicly backed by both Charlton Athletic Chief Executive Peter Varney, who branded the writ a sad and pathetic publicity stunt, and Chairman Richard Murray, who was adamant that his legal team could find no grounds for the writ to be upheld, and suggested that there may be more personal reasons behind the writ being issued.^[3] The case is due to be heard in court in the summer of 2007.

When Iain Dowie took over at the Valley, he was given more money than any previous manager to spend on players, but was unable to prevent the team suffering a disastrous start to the Premiership campaign. Despite this, the team reached the quarter final of the Carling Cup for the first time in their history. Unfortunately, Dowie was unable to lift the team away from the bottom of the Premiership and build on the success of former manager Alan Curbishley, resulting in him and the club parting company on the evening of Monday 13 November 2006, after just 15 games in charge - 12 in the Premiership.^[4]

Soon after his departure from Charlton, in December 2006, he was linked with the vacant managers job at Hull City, but reportedly turned down the position.^[5]

Dowie is now at the manager's position at Coventry City, and was unveiled as Coventry City manager on 19 February 2007.^[6][7]

• Dowie has a Masters degree in mechanical engineering, which he believes helps him to be logical and analytical in his approach to football management.
• While at West Ham, Dowie scored a spectacular headed own goal to help opponents Stockport win a league cup tie on 18 December 1996.[1]
• Dowie gives credit for his success at Crystal Palace to his brother and director of football Bob, and John Harbin, the Australian fitness coach Dowie met while manager of Oldham.
• Dowie has broken his nose 15 times
• For motivating his players, Dowie read, more than once, inspirational books like Beyond Winning and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Pinned around the walls of Palace's training ground in big letters was: "How much do I want it?"
• While manager at Crystal Palace, Dowie acknowledges that he did have differences with chairman, Simon Jordan, but they shared the same vision to establish Crystal Palace as a Premiership team with Premiership standards.^{[citation needed]}
• Since many of the Premiership managers have nicknames such as "Curbs", "Fergie" and "Psycho", some Charlton fans call him "Monica" after a feature on the Frankie Valley website.^{[citation needed]}

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	L	D	Win %
Queens Park Rangers		September 28, 1998	October 16, 1998	2	1	1	0	50.00
Oldham Athletic		May 31, 2002	December 19, 2003	82	31	23	28	37.80
Crystal Palace		December 22, 2003	May 22, 2006	123	50	44	29	40.65
Charlton Athletic		May 30, 2006	November 13, 2006	15	4	8	3	26.66
Coventry City		February 19, 2007	Present	6	4	0	2	66.67

• Iain Dowie career stats at Soccerbase
• Iain Dowie management career stats at Soccerbase

Preceded by Mick Wadsworth	Oldham Athletic A.F.C. manager 2002-2003	Succeeded by Brian Talbot
Preceded by Steve Kember	Crystal Palace F.C. manager 2003-2006	Succeeded by Peter Taylor
Preceded by Alan Curbishley	Charlton Athletic F.C. manager 2006	Succeeded by Les Reed
Preceded by Adrian Heath (caretaker)	Coventry City F.C. manager 2007-	Succeeded by Incumbent

Coventry City F.C. - Current Squad
1 Steele | 2 Whing | 3 Hall | 4 Page | 5 Ward | 6 Hughes | 8 Doyle | 9 Adebola | 10 Kyle | 11 Birchall | 13 Lee-Barrett | 14 Fadiga | 15 McKenzie | 16 Osbourne | 17 Mifsud | 18 McNamee | 19 Giddings | 20 Hawkins | 21 Tabb | 22 Hutchison | 23 Cameron | 24 Bunce | 25 Virgo | 29 Thornton | 30 Davis | 31 Lynch | 33 Marshall | 43 Belford | Manager: Dowie