Bowyer: 'The Den never fazed me.'

A wintry midweek night in Huddersfield, a thin scattering of Addicks in the away end. Suddenly Lee Bowyer, then at Leeds, appears in the row in front of me.   As he says in an interview with Richard Cawley, ‘I’m an ordinary sort of guy.’   (As I recall, we won).

The first of this fascinating two-part interview covers his career as a player, the second part will look at his time managing at Charlton.  As a taster, I am reproducing his remarks on playing at the rust bucket.

Bowyer was sent off at The Den – Kim Grant scored twice to secure maximum points - against Millwall. Bowyer produced an acrobatic finish in the return fixture, in March 1996, as Charlton once again prevailed 2-0. It is the last time Charlton have vanquished the Lions.

So did he feel intimidated playing at the Lions’ home ground?   [aka 'The Rust Bucket'] “I was fearless,” said Bowyer. “The Den never fazed me. My red card was down to my inexperience and being naive. I got sent off for two bookable offences and I never touched either player.

“I went to make a tackle, Alex Rae laid the ball off, jumped in the air and I got booked. If I had been further along in my career then I would never have made that mistake - I wouldn’t even have tried to make the second tackle (on Ricky Newman).

“It was a good goal at The Valley. Almost an overhead kick - with my left foot. I don’t even know how I did it, but it went in. The most important thing was that we beat them.

“It’s madness we haven’t done it again.   That still hurts me now, because I’ve been manager (at Charlton). Both times we lost against them by one goal. I remember the home game during Covid. We started the better side, had some half-chances before the match evened itself out. Late on their centre-half Jake Cooper smashed in after a ricochet. I was thinking: ‘Wow, you don’t deserve that’. That’s football though - it is the way it goes.”

On other matters, thanks to Charlton scourge Lord Young of Acton (‘Tobes’) reaching out and offering to host me at a home game at Loftus Road.   Thanks, but no thanks.  But I regard our little feud as being over.   He is an authentic football fan, even if he has the misfortune to support QPR.