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Fullname: John Dowie
Born: December 12th 1955
Birthplace: Hamilton
Signed: September 6th 1977
Position: Midfield
Internationals: N/A
International Caps: N/A

Biog

Hamilton-born John Dowie was a former Rangers ‘S’ form signing and Gers supporter who joined the Bhoys in September 1977 from Fulham.

Released by his beloved Rangers in 1972 without making the grade at senior level, Dowie moved to Craven Cottage where he was mostly a bit part player. In 1975 he was part of the Fulham squad which lost 2-0 to West Ham in the FA cup final but did not make the 12 man team who stripped for the occasion. Jock Stein’s move to sign Dowie for £25,000 raised a few eyebrows and ironically Dowie made his Celtic debut at Ibrox in a league clash on September 10th which the home side won 3-2 after Celtic had blown a 2-0 half time lead.

The 1977/78 season was a horrendous one for Celtic and John was played in every midfield role and also as an emergency left back on occasions. He played in the 1978 League cup final defeat to Rangers and one week later he excelled at Celtic Park as Celtic gained revenge by beating Rangers 2-0 in what was probably his best performance in the hoops.

Dowie was a hard working, versatile and industrious midfielder and whilst he was brought in to strengthen a squad light on both numbers and quality he may have helped address the former he did little to improve the latter. He fell from favour in April 1978 and even when Billy McNeill took over from Jock Stein that summer he was unable to win his place back as McNeill put his faith in the younger players such as Aitken, Conroy and Burns. After failing to make a first team appearance in the 1978/79 season at Parkhead Dowie was freed in April 1979 after 18 appearances in total for the Celts.

He went on to play for Doncaster Rovers and Clyde before eventually plying his trade in Australia.

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