Scott Bowker's Biography

Scott Bowker was born in January 1985 at Heavitree Hospital in Exeter to parents Keith and Carol.

His father Keith was born in West Bromwich in 1951 and moved to Exeter due to football commitments. He is an ex professional footballer whose teams included Birmingham City, Northampton Town, Cambridge United, Exeter City and Torquay United. After finishing his career in the South West Keith and Carol decided to stay in the area and raise the family there. He is now a manager in the Royal Mails Exeter branch, in charge of various areas of Exeter.
His mother Carol was also born in West Bromwich in 1950 and she works for a trade union called Unison. The two of them have always been an inspiration to Scott and have always done everything to make his life full of happy memories and because of this he is very thankful to them.

Scott also has 2 brothers the oldest Simon is 33 years old, he lives in Bristol with his wife Jenny and his other brother is called Steven and he is 31 years old. He lives in a small village called Martock just outside of Yeovil with his wife Liz and 2 kids Grace who is 3 years old and Miles who is coming up to 1. Scott would like to bring to your attention that although there is a large age gap between him and his brothers, his parents still insist he wasn't a mistake.

While Scott was growing up his brothers were becoming very successful and pursuing their careers very professionally, Simon achieved a degree in English and American Literature at the University of East Anglia (UEA) after this he dabbled in many professions first of all becoming an English teacher to foreign students for a company called TEFL then took this profession to Australia where he lived for a year. On his return he decided to take a different career path and become an accountant. On his qualification to be an accountant, in his first year he was named Trainee Accountant of the year in the country. With this accolade came the job offers and Simon is now a very successful accountant in Bristol.
Steven growing up was a very keen footballer and in his youth had trials for Torquay United, Exeter City and even managed to play half a season in Aston Villa's reserve team against some top players of the nineties. When this dream didn't become a reality he decided to pursue his educational career. With this he went to the University of East London and achieved a degree in Sports Science. Once he left University he swiftly moved into a good level of non-league football in London and acquired a job in Gold's Gym in London, one of the biggest gym franchises in America. After a while he realised he had another dream and after a number of applications being filled in and 16 strenuous weeks of training Steven became a fire fighter.
Scott has always looked up to his brothers and sees them both as an inspiration and again would like to thank them for all their support over the years. Without the bullying he wouldn’t be the person he is today!!!!

Scott has a girlfriend called Nicola, they met in May 2006 in the Imperial in Exeter. It was a Monday night and Scott was out with his mate Damon Harris for the usual nightly session. Nicola had just got back from her holiday to Gran Canaria with her friend Karen who was later to become friends with Damon but that's another story.
As the night went on their eye's kept meeting and Karen went over to Scott and Damon, invited them over and the rest is history. Scott pretty much moved into Nicola’s flat with her straight away and they have lived together happily for the last year and a bit. In their year together they have somewhat lived the high life, travelling a lot. Having a weekend away to London for Nicola's birthday, a weekend in Paris for Scott's birthday. A weeklong holiday to Tunisia in 2006, a family skiing and snowboarding holiday (Scott's family) to Austria for a week in January 2007 and only recently they have returned from a fantastic 2-week all-inclusive holiday to the Dominican Republic.
They have done quite a lot in their short time together and plans are now moving onto buying a house together where they are in the process of sorting out their mortgage and just finding somewhere to live. Then who knows what the future holds.

Anyway moving on, this is Scott's family and you'll probably see a lot more of them in his photo's section.

Growing up Scott was a very keen footballer and always dreamt of following in his father's footsteps. He started playing properly at the age of nine for a local team called St Leonards, which was where Scott grew up. He played with players that he would later go on to go to school with for years to come. At this age he attended Central First School, which was as far as he can remember was an exciting time where he made a lot of friends.
Moving on from here he went to Ladysmith Middle School where his 2 brothers attended. With this move he left behind a lot of his friends and had to start again making a whole new group of friends. He also moved on to a new football team, which was a slightly better standard with a league and competitive matches every week. The team was called Pinhoe Spartans and was run by a man called Barry Hitchcock who worked with his father at the Royal Mail and is also his sister in law Liz's Uncle, which at the time was completely irrelevant as Steven and Liz weren’t an item. Scott went on to spend many happy years with Pinhoe becoming captain of all the different age groups he played for and won lots of trophies through competitions and also through presentation evenings winning the chairman's award, player of the year and players player of the year on numerous occasions. While at Ladysmith Scott found himself enjoying his education, going to a school his brothers went to was not all that bad as they both did well in school and got on with everyone and some of their old teachers were still there. He got on well with the teachers getting good reports \"most\" of the time and also enjoying the extra curricular side of things being captain of the football team, captain of the tag rugby team winning the regional championships, captain of the school 5-a-side team and taking them to the national qualifiers of the Wagon Wheel Tournament. He was also joint captain of his athletics team and participant in various other activities (to name one \"the choir\").
On leaving Ladysmith he again moved to a school that no one from Ladysmith except 2 or 3 people went to and that was Priory High School, which again his brother's went to. Luckily here he met up with a lot of friends from Central First School so he wasn't at such a disadvantage this time. At this time Scott was taking his football very seriously and had become involved with Exeter City's training academy, East Devon Schools FA and Devon County Centre of Excellence. All of this was happening while still playing for Pinhoe Spartans, however this was to be cut out as Exeter City became a more serious endeavour. At Priory Scott was doing well, sports was his main priority then came his education. Still with the dream of following in his fathers footsteps in mind he didn't do as well as he should. He was in the football team, the athletics team, the badminton team on occasions and the basketball team. He made a lot of friends while at Priory and is still in contact with some of them today. He still says that he's not in contact with enough and if any of them do see this he hopes that some come forward and tell him what they're doing. East Devon football came and went and it moved on to Devon where he was again named captain and he led them to the semi finals of the national cup where they eventually got knocked out by a very dirty East Sussex side. This again was the end of this team but he was still in the fold at Exeter City. At the end of his 4 years at Priory, Scott had achieved 9 GCSE's all with acceptable grades in his mind. The grades weren’t as good as his brothers but he was still content with them.

While all his friends went off to college Scott chose the football path being offered an apprenticeship at Exeter City, he took it. Having such successful years with all his other teams he felt he was nearing his dream. He joined Exeter knowing a number of the players that he had played with in the past. It got off to the best possible start with the whole youth team running circuits around the training ground and finishing the day with a pint with the lads in the Imperial. His first year came and went with 3 different first team managers and 2 youth team managers and things weren't going according to plan. He had fallen out of favour with his managers and a player who no one believed was anywhere near as good as Scott was starting all the games ahead of him. This continued into his second year with the managers not giving him the opportunity he deserved. There were players there that weren't the best players and on any other day wouldn’t make it into most Western League sides. However their parents did go to every game so they couldn't disappoint them. Scott's father Keith didn't go to many game's, Scott's not sure to this day whether it was his fault or a mutual thing but he always felt that bit of extra pressure when his dad was there because his dad actually knew what he was talking about. Scott always claims that if he could go back in time he would have encouraged his father to come and watch him more, and for the fact he didn't he is sorry, maybe one day he can get him to come and be critical with him over his own children!

While at Exeter City the team had to do a day release to complete a GNVQ in Leisure and Recreation, which Scott completed this achieving good results. At the same time Scott went to Exeter College afterwards with a few of the other lads to do AS Level PE which again he completed and he knew he would find useful for future life. The 2 years ended and Scott wasn't offered a professional contract, he has his own views on why and feels it would be unethical if he shared them on here, all he did comment was that \"there was a clash of personalities between himself and a member of staff when it came to being on the pitch\". After this he felt that the dream was slipping away and soon he was to find that it had. Once he left Exeter he joined Dawlish Town where in the previous years his brother had played and done very well. It was pre season and they had played a few games, he was playing well, he was fit and he was finally being allowed to show his full potential. Then in his 4th game the unthinkable happened, 3 minutes into a game with Team Bath he suffered a clean break of the Tibia and Fibula. From this moment I think it kicked in with Scott that he might not ever make it.

From now on the road to recovery seemed like a distant dream and he was now off to the University of Gloucestershire to study Sports Development and Psychology, at the time Scott had a girlfriend and he spent a lot of money in fact so much money that after 4 months he was forced to drop out of University with a debt of £7000 this wasn't including the savings that he had spent. Like the great parents they had already been through all of his life Scott's mum and dad bailed him out paying off the debt and making Scott pay them back gradually (which now he has done and will definitely never get himself in that situation again). On leaving university Scott found himself lost, he didn't know what he wanted to do or even what he could do for that matter, he jumped in and out of jobs. At the same time he was enjoying himself, he would be out most nights in clubs to the early hours making lots of friends and catching up with old friends. As much as he enjoyed these years with his 3 closest friends Olly Scott, Damon Harris and Luke Clement he still felt his life slipping away, he would see the same faces every week then suddenly they would start to disappear and new faces would appear. He felt as though everyone was moving on but him.
Football took a back seat for a while. He got a new job at a company called Tracks of Exeter, it was a Suzuki car dealer and he joined there as a car valeter, it wasn’t his ideal job but he needed something and he felt that it may be a foot in the door to better things. His godfather Graham Tooth got him the job there, he was a salesman and a very close friend of the family. After a few months of being at Suzuki Scott felt very comfortable and had made a new bunch of friends, he had even started playing 5-a-side football with a few of the lads he worked with. He also made a few 11 a side appearances for the Civil Service as well as pre season training with Exmouth Town although he was playing in one way or another he still felt that the dream was over. His role at Suzuki was about to change though, his godfather had moved onto Renault and a position opened up on the sales team, having some previous sales experience in a job selling gas and electric door to door for NPower, Scott found himself selling cars. He loved it and he felt like it was something he could do for the rest of his life. His god father came back after about 5 months and things were running smoothly.

In the summer of 2006 as mentioned above Scott met Nicola. This was to be the turning point in Scott's life. He had met this amazing girl who he clicked with almost instantly they had the same interests, they had a similar sense of humour (although Scott claims to be funnier) and they felt like they were meant to be (Well Scott Did Anyway!) from the word go. Since they have been together Scott has got on well with all of Nicola's family and would like to thank them for accepting him as Nicola's boyfriend.

In July of 2007 Scott handed his notice in a Suzuki, for various reasons the main one of which that he was working weekends and he felt that he needed to get back into football, he hadn't played for so long and the talent that he had was going to waste. Also he found himself missing out on valuable parts of his life, like his niece and nephew growing up and spending time with Nicola and his and her families.

He has now joined a company called Ayrmer Software working with Nicola's brother Grant. He is now under the job title of Software Developer and after only a few weeks in the job he is loving it and has learnt so much already.
Since moving jobs he has also had the opportunity to play football again. Having signed for Heavitree Social Club he played his first competitive 11 a-side match in over a year. Playing a team 2 leagues above them they were having a shaky start and they went 2-0 down within the first 15 minutes due to formation problems. They managed to change things quickly and turn things around. They managed to claw out a 2-2 draw with a very promising end to the game.
Having everything in place in life after the ups and downs of his football career his University placement. Scott now feels that with the great job he now has, the amazing family he has behind him and the wonderful girlfriend he has, his life is starting to fall into place. All this topped off with the fact that he is now starting over on his one life dream. Who knows what the future will hold for Scott Bowker.

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