Dad to be Worthing owner George Dowell has spoken ahead of his side’s FA Cup appearance – ‘As much as I saved Worthing, Worthing saved me’.
The National League South club owner and former player has gone from being on the pitch for the under 18s side, to buying the club using compensation from a career-ending car crash which left him paralysed from the chest down.
The wheelchair-bound 31-year-old saw his playing days cut short with the car crash in 2010 at the age of just 17 meaning he would never walk again.
But he didn’t let that stop his love for the club, if anything, only increased it by so much more, as in 2015, he used the compensation he received to buy Worthing, who at the time had debut of £200,000 and stared extinction in the face.
But he and his team have guided them to the sixth tier, sitting just outside the playoff places, in what is quite the turnaround for the ‘Rebels’.
George was a full-back who had broke into Worthing’s first-team and had been on course to have trials with England before the life-changing accident.
It was in his mate’s car when it happened, carrying him and three friends, the vehicle flipped off the road, landing in a field on the way to get a McDonald’s in April 2010, his mates luckily with cuts and bruises, but George had to be cut out.
He woke up in hospital and couldn’t feel anything when he was transferred to Salisbury Spinal Unit 75 miles away, while his mates had luckily just cuts and bruises.
“My family were told bang straightaway the night it happened that I’d broken my neck and won’t walk again,” he said as per The Sun in 2020.
“I was asleep on heavy meds for most of the next two weeks but as soon as I was in a position to understand the consultant explained.
“It was hard, it was horrible. The first thing I thought was, ‘I won’t be playing football again’.
“That’s all I was doing at the time and all I wanted to do. When you’re told that it’s, ‘Where do you go from here?’.”
“I was told I would probably never walk again,” Dowell, also said to BBC Sport ahead of his side’s FA Cup First Round appearance in 2023.
“I couldn’t feel anything.
“I remember screaming to my friends. I was taken to hospital in Chichester first and the medics were asking me ‘can you feel this, can you feel that?’ I couldn’t feel a thing.
“I was very active and sporty before the accident. They were very blunt at the spinal centre.
“When I was told I would probably never walk again you’re thinking ‘I’m never going to play football again, I’m never going to do the things I love doing again’. I felt my life was over.
“I was on my back for three months unable to move my head or arms. Then I tried getting up. I was sick all the time because I had been lying down for so long and my blood pressure was all over the place.
“It was a hard few months. But they are very good at the hospital. It was a very positive environment and I quickly realised this was going to be my life now.”
“Football was still my passion but I struggled to watch it even on TV for a while because I knew I couldn’t play it,” he revealed to The Sun, and had been studying public services, thinking of being a firefighter prior to the crash.
“Then I found a different appreciation of watching it, like the tactical side and stuff. I started playing a lot of Football Manager in hospital.
“Then my mates said I should start my own team when I leave Salisbury.
“It took about two years because when I left hospital I wasn’t feeling confident and didn’t want to be around new people.
“I felt safe in the spinal unit. Then when I got home I felt comfortable so didn’t want to start going to places I hadn’t been before. I worried what people would think about being in a wheelchair.”
Dowell was able to go back home in 2011, coming to terms to life in a wheelchair.
He recalled how Worthing.had debts of almost £200,000 and requiring £6,000 a month just to open their doors.
“I read an article in the paper that stated they were in real trouble and just weeks away from folding all together,” added Dowell.
“After asking questions to people at the club I thought this would be something I’d love to get involved with, and a great opportunity for me to get back into football in a different way.”
George used his compensation money wisely, setting up Worthing Football Centre, which would help create a real community hub at Wooside Road, with the new artificial surface available for hire to all teams and age groups seven days a week.
All this coming after he had formed his own football team in the West Sussex League, Worthing Borough, who in 2019 couldn’t resolve issues and subsequently folded.
Meanwhile at Worthing FC, whose situation was looking bad, George admitted that from his point of view, the “timing was perfect”.
Talks were held over George investing in an artificial pitch at their increasingly rundown stadium, with the club being weeks from going out of business.
“It was scary,” he admitted to The Sun. “I spoke to my mate’s dad again and said I’ll speak to the board about my idea.”
Instead of handing over his cash, George had decided he wanted full control, and while there were some reluctance from the hierarchy and a preference to just have him as an investor rather than owner and chairman, they gave him a 70% of the club.
George recalls telling his Mum about buying the club: “She said, ‘You’re f***ing joking aren’t you?’.
“But then they were all fully supportive and understood that I couldn’t just sit at home twiddling my thumbs for the rest of my life. I wanted to get back involved in football and this was a brilliant opportunity.”
George estimates that he has since put “close to a million” into Worthing since his accident, laughing as he tots up the total.
“In the board’s ideal world I’d have put the pitch in and kept them all in place but my opinion at the time was the club was in debt for a reason,” George says.
“Not that any of them had done a bad job, I just think it needed a new lease of life and if I’m investing that amount of money I wanted to bring in people that I knew and trusted.
“We had a really strong group of volunteers and a financial director who stayed on but at the start it was just me, Calvin and that was about it.
“I’ve got a PA Jamie who’s one of my carers, he was down here a lot. It was just the three of us really and I don’t know how we got through it. We were just winging it really.
“The 3G pitch helped massively as it enables the rest of the community to use it.
“The older generation were against it and were like ’this doesn’t compare to grass’, but they all now appreciate that it’s the way forward for clubs at this level if they want to survive.
“You have to rely on the community to fund the club. Them and sponsors pay the wages.”
They’ve renovated the main stand, turned a old bar into a seven-day-a-week pub, built an outside bar, developed the squad under current manager and former Brighton defender Adam Hinshelwood, seen the development of the academy teams with over 40 youth players have made first-team appearances, and created a community club giving kids a chance, “rather than bringing in 11 journeymen from London on massive money” and seen a huge boost in attendances, currently getting over 1,300 on average in the stands.
The club grew over years, and in 2018, George stepped down as chairman but remained as owner, bringing in a club secretary, operations director and facilities manager.
“We don’t want to be that like, where they piled money in,” he said on comparisons of being like Billericay and Glenn Tamplin being off the mark.
“We played them when they were in our league and it’s really good down there but I won’t be getting a mural done here.
“Everyone was taking the mick saying you should get one done, but no chance.
“Everyone says a lot about Glenn and the way he went about it but he brings attention to the club, whether it’s good or bad, and put his money where his mouth is. Look where Billericay are as a result of it, fair play to him.”
Since this interview, Billericay have since dropped back into the Isthmian League after Glenn Tamplin’s departure.
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Fast forward to November 2023, and they’re getting set to compete in the FA Cup First Round, but will George Dowell be at Alfreton on Saturday?
His partner Jessica’s side is due to give birth, with George saying to the BBC: “I can’t miss the birth. I’ve arranged for a live stream so I can watch it on my laptop back in Worthing.”
Dowell said that becoming owner of Worthing has given him a sense of purpose.
“I didn’t know what life in a wheelchair was going to look like,” he added. “With time you get used to your body and your situation.
“I try to focus on what I can do and try and make the most of it. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You’ve just got to look for them and have a crack at it.”
He can be proud of what has been achieved on and off the pitch at Worthing. FA Cup excitement, and the club are on the up, sitting outside the National League South playoffs look to hopefully achieve promotion to the National League for the first time in their history.
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