Full Article Scottish Newspaper 31st July: Don Cowie
Sat Jul 30, 2011 11:29 pm
Cardiff's Don Cowie raises his profile!
Date: 31 July 2011
By Anthony Brown
FOR someone performing such an accomplished rise up the career ladder, Don Cowie has managed to maintain an incredibly low profile in his homeland. You get the feeling this amiable 28-year-old from Inverness could walk along any street in Scotland without being recognised. When he's called up for Scotland duty, there is a collective utterances of "Don who?"
Yet Cowie's anonymity doesn't tally with the fact that he's a proven SPL midfielder as well as an established Championship player, having been Watford's talisman over the past two and a half years before following manager Malky Mackay from Vicarage Road to the glitzier Cardiff City earlier this summer. Despite being arguably as important to Watford as Graham Dorrans is to West Brom, Robert Snodgrass to Leeds or even Charlie Adam was to Blackpool, Cowie and fanfare have never gone hand in hand outwith Hertfordshire or the Highlands
As a laid-back Invernesian Cowie is unfazed by the fact he remains something of a nonentity in Scotland. For the former Ross County and Caley Thistle midfielder, all that matters is that he's respected by those that count, namely Mackay and Craig Levein, the Scotland manager who handed him his third cap in the friendly with Brazil in March.
"Maybe playing for less fashionable clubs is a factor in why I'm not so well known," he acknowledged. "In my first season in the SPL I scored nine goals from midfield which was a good achievement playing for a small club like Inverness. If I had scored nine goals for Aberdeen or Hibs as a midfielder it might have been highlighted a bit more, but it's really not something that effects me. As a boy from the Highlands my attitude's always been to strive to do as well as I can to catch someone's eye. If I do, then brilliant, but if I don't, I won't lose too much sleep. The main thing for me is that, out of all the players at Watford, I was the one that the manager was desperate to take with him to Cardiff."
Following in the footsteps of fellow Highlanders John McGinlay, Colin Hendry and Barry Robson in making hay down south, Cowie admits it's difficult for those up north to take their career to the next level. "There's not many Highlanders who have made it to this level, so I'm very proud of that. Sometimes when you're as far north, it can be harder to cut ties and move away. I think a lot of people maybe just assume that because you've played up north for so long that you're a Highland boy in a comfort zone, but that was never the case for me. It takes a bit of luck and somebody taking a chance.
Luckily for me Charlie Christie gave me that chance at Inverness and it snowballed from there before I got my move to Watford."
Continuing the low-key theme, even in his move to Cardiff, one of the Championship's higher-profile clubs, Cowie's defe ction from England's south-east to the Welsh capital has been somewhat overshadowed by the arrival of strikers Kenny Miller and Robert Earnshaw. It is these two who are expected to fill the boots of Craig Bellamy and Jay Bothroyd as Mackay aims to steer the ambitious Welsh side into the Premier League after two years of failure in the play-offs. Like Middlesbrough a year ago, Cardiff's bid will centre around a core of Scots talent. In addition to Cowie and Miller, the likes of David Marshall, Kevin McNaughton and former Dundee United winger Craig Conway will have a say in whether or not the highly-rated Mackay is able to succeed where former Boro manager Gordon Strachan failed.
"A lot of people fancied Boro but it didn't quite work out," said Cowie. "It's a bit different here, though, because a few of our Scottish boys like David and Kevin have been here for years, while myself and Kenny have got experience of the Championship. The manager has signed some good Scottish players and getting in guys like Kenny Miller can only be good for the club. His record is frightening and certainly in the last three or four years he's really kicked on. To get him to come here when Rangers wanted him is a massive coup for us."
Cowie will now be playing his football at the scene of his only start for Scotland - a 3-0 defeat by Wales in 2009 which signalled the end of George Burley's reign. Cowie doesn't feel tarnished by his involvement in that and is determined that his forthcoming outings at the Cardiff City Stadium act as a platform for a blossoming of his international career. "The problem I've got at the moment is that Scotland are blessed with so many quality midfielders. Cardiff are a more high-profile club than Watford so that should hopefully help me get a wee bit more international recognition. The fact there are so many other Scots here will hopefully mean more people from the national team come down to watch us so then it's up to me to catch the eye of Craig Levein. I don't think the Wales game's worked against me because Craig's come in and given everyone a clean slate and the fact he's had me in his squads shows that he's willing to pick me."
Article: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/to ... iclepage=1
Date: 31 July 2011
By Anthony Brown
FOR someone performing such an accomplished rise up the career ladder, Don Cowie has managed to maintain an incredibly low profile in his homeland. You get the feeling this amiable 28-year-old from Inverness could walk along any street in Scotland without being recognised. When he's called up for Scotland duty, there is a collective utterances of "Don who?"
Yet Cowie's anonymity doesn't tally with the fact that he's a proven SPL midfielder as well as an established Championship player, having been Watford's talisman over the past two and a half years before following manager Malky Mackay from Vicarage Road to the glitzier Cardiff City earlier this summer. Despite being arguably as important to Watford as Graham Dorrans is to West Brom, Robert Snodgrass to Leeds or even Charlie Adam was to Blackpool, Cowie and fanfare have never gone hand in hand outwith Hertfordshire or the Highlands
As a laid-back Invernesian Cowie is unfazed by the fact he remains something of a nonentity in Scotland. For the former Ross County and Caley Thistle midfielder, all that matters is that he's respected by those that count, namely Mackay and Craig Levein, the Scotland manager who handed him his third cap in the friendly with Brazil in March.
"Maybe playing for less fashionable clubs is a factor in why I'm not so well known," he acknowledged. "In my first season in the SPL I scored nine goals from midfield which was a good achievement playing for a small club like Inverness. If I had scored nine goals for Aberdeen or Hibs as a midfielder it might have been highlighted a bit more, but it's really not something that effects me. As a boy from the Highlands my attitude's always been to strive to do as well as I can to catch someone's eye. If I do, then brilliant, but if I don't, I won't lose too much sleep. The main thing for me is that, out of all the players at Watford, I was the one that the manager was desperate to take with him to Cardiff."
Following in the footsteps of fellow Highlanders John McGinlay, Colin Hendry and Barry Robson in making hay down south, Cowie admits it's difficult for those up north to take their career to the next level. "There's not many Highlanders who have made it to this level, so I'm very proud of that. Sometimes when you're as far north, it can be harder to cut ties and move away. I think a lot of people maybe just assume that because you've played up north for so long that you're a Highland boy in a comfort zone, but that was never the case for me. It takes a bit of luck and somebody taking a chance.
Luckily for me Charlie Christie gave me that chance at Inverness and it snowballed from there before I got my move to Watford."
Continuing the low-key theme, even in his move to Cardiff, one of the Championship's higher-profile clubs, Cowie's defe ction from England's south-east to the Welsh capital has been somewhat overshadowed by the arrival of strikers Kenny Miller and Robert Earnshaw. It is these two who are expected to fill the boots of Craig Bellamy and Jay Bothroyd as Mackay aims to steer the ambitious Welsh side into the Premier League after two years of failure in the play-offs. Like Middlesbrough a year ago, Cardiff's bid will centre around a core of Scots talent. In addition to Cowie and Miller, the likes of David Marshall, Kevin McNaughton and former Dundee United winger Craig Conway will have a say in whether or not the highly-rated Mackay is able to succeed where former Boro manager Gordon Strachan failed.
"A lot of people fancied Boro but it didn't quite work out," said Cowie. "It's a bit different here, though, because a few of our Scottish boys like David and Kevin have been here for years, while myself and Kenny have got experience of the Championship. The manager has signed some good Scottish players and getting in guys like Kenny Miller can only be good for the club. His record is frightening and certainly in the last three or four years he's really kicked on. To get him to come here when Rangers wanted him is a massive coup for us."
Cowie will now be playing his football at the scene of his only start for Scotland - a 3-0 defeat by Wales in 2009 which signalled the end of George Burley's reign. Cowie doesn't feel tarnished by his involvement in that and is determined that his forthcoming outings at the Cardiff City Stadium act as a platform for a blossoming of his international career. "The problem I've got at the moment is that Scotland are blessed with so many quality midfielders. Cardiff are a more high-profile club than Watford so that should hopefully help me get a wee bit more international recognition. The fact there are so many other Scots here will hopefully mean more people from the national team come down to watch us so then it's up to me to catch the eye of Craig Levein. I don't think the Wales game's worked against me because Craig's come in and given everyone a clean slate and the fact he's had me in his squads shows that he's willing to pick me."
Article: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/to ... iclepage=1