One night in April 2010, 17-year-old George Dowell sat on the bench for Worthing FC.
He hadn’t featured for his hometown club’s first team before, but it wasn’t far away. A career in English football’s lower divisions beckoned, with League One or League Two still a realistic dream. This was the final step before making it.
After the game, Dowell went out with friends but was involved in a car crash on the way back. Dowell broke his spine while everyone else walked away. 10 months later, he wheeled out of the Salisbury Spinal Centre paralysed from the chest down.
Years passed of personal rediscovery, of hiding, of awkward interactions in the street with people he hadn’t seen since the injury, before friends convinced him to return to football however he could.
Armed with compensation money and a dream, he set up his own team, Worthing Borough, in West Sussex Division Seven. It wasn’t exactly Todd Boehly buying Chelsea, but it was a start. Sometimes the start is the most important step.
Dowell appointed himself manager – why wouldn’t you? – and got his friends to play, eventually earning back-to-back promotions.
Meanwhile, down the road Worthing FC were struggling in the Isthmian League Division South. Dowell read a newspaper article saying the Mackerel Men needed significant investment or they would fold at the end of the season.
Months later, in May 2015 he not only bought his former club, but cleared debts of £200,000 and set about installing a 3G pitch. He was 22.
“At the time when Worthing were struggling I saved them, but in the same way they saved me really,” Dowell tells i.
“It gave me a purpose in life and really brought me back out of my shell. It’s been a catalyst for a very happy life. I’ll always be very grateful to the club for that.
“I was stuck at home in a bit of a rut, not really knowing what to do with my life, but I knew I loved football and I wanted to stay involved and I wanted to try and get out and about a bit more.
“I was worried about going out and trying new things and meeting new people because I didn’t want the faff if I got there and it wasn’t accessible. I wasn’t very comfortable in my skin at that time after growing up being an active football player and playing sport all the time to overnight not being able to walk anymore.”
By any metric, Dowell and Worthing’s symbiosis has been a massive success. Promotion via the play-offs in 2015-16 should have been swiftly followed by progression to the National League South. Worthing were top of the Isthmian Premier in both 2019-20 and 2020-21 before both seasons were called off, finally making it to the sixth tier after 2021-22.
This is understandably a source of huge pride for Dowell and things are only getting better. Fourth in 2022-23 became third in 2023-24, only losing the play-off final to Braintree 4-3 through an extra-time header. If the club’s progression is linear, this should be their year.
“The proudest moment so far is at the end of last season when we won the play-off semi-final and we were gearing up for the final,” Dowell explains.
“In that week it just felt like the whole town was talking about Worthing Football Club and we sold out our ticket allocation in about three minutes. We had 15,000 to 20,000 people trying to buy tickets and we only had 3,500 we could sell.
“We’ve come a long way from 150, 200 people coming on a Saturday to watch the games. Now we’ve got a whole town buying into what we do and we feel like a real part of the community.”
Dowell believes the club reintegrated itself in the town – one of the biggest in England never to have a football league club – through public use of their 3G pitch and the expansion of their age-group teams. Worthing now have a development centre from U8s, teams from U14 to U19, senior teams and inclusive teams. If everyone who represents the club turns up at Woodside Road on a Saturday, there’s already a decent crowd.
And Worthing is becoming a quiet hotbed for young talent. 21-year-old right back Fin Stevens spent a year at the club before joining Brentford, and now plays for St Pauli and has two senior Welsh caps. Jasper Pattenden was at the club for four years before joining Wycombe, while Bradley Dolaghan joined West Ham this summer and Zac Jeanes headed to Swansea. A former youth product himself, this is a key focus for Dowell.
Of course, that’s George Dowell MBE to you, a title he was bestowed last year, within a few months of Worthing reaching the first round of the FA Cup and the birth of his first child, which fell on the first day. Dowell met girlfriend Jessikah shortly before Covid-19 hit after appearing on Channel 4 show Undateables – she watched his episode and followed him on social media as a result.
Now 31, Dowell is an advocate for spinal cord injury awareness and runs an Instagram account with Jessikah detailing life in an interabled couple.
“It’s a massively life-changing injury for anyone at any age, but at 17 I probably didn’t have the toolset to really comprehend what that now means for my life,” he says.
“I didn’t have anyone in my immediate circle at the time who had a disability so I was very naïve to the fact this sort of injury can happen to anyone at any time. You don’t think it’s going to happen to you.
“Always be understanding of the people you come into contact with. You don’t know what their disability is or exactly how it affects them. After a spinal cord injury, your life is different but it’s certainly not over. There’s still plenty you can go out and achieve.”
And given its not infeasible Dowell owns the club for another 50 years, there’s plenty he’s planning to achieve.
“There’s a lot of exciting stuff. We’re building a new reception, new offices, new bar, new North Stand, we had the West Stand built last season.
“We don’t really see a ceiling yet. We never want to be a club that’s happy standing still, we’ll always be pushing to get out of the league and we feel like we can do it for sure. We want to be a full-time club in the not-to distant future.
“I hope no-one ever thinks I’d make a decision for my personal gain rather than for the club. As long as I’m remembered and thought of someone that always did their best for the club and was approachable, I’m fine with that.”
The Club That George Built premieres on TNT Sports 1 at 22:30 on 1st October 2024 and will be available to watch on-demand via discovery+.
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