Wolves legend Stowell not planning to take up DIY anytime soon after Leicester departure

Aged 40 and recently retired after four years with Bristol City, Stowell was invited for an interview by then Foxes manager Craig Levein.

It sparked the start of a long career that saw Stowell work for 13 different managers as well as taking on the role of interim manager on no less than six occasions. His first big test came during Martin Allen’s brief stay at the club. During half time in a Championship match at Nottingham Forest in August 2007, on-loan defender Clive Clarke collapsed in the dressing room with a cardiac arrest.

“He looked terrible and all I remember was him falling down head first,” Stowell recalls. “We just cleared the area and the medics came in and saved his life.” Clarke recovered but the incident had a profound effect on the players and management.

When Leicester were relegated to League One at the end of that season, following spells in charge from Gary Megson and Ian Holloway, Stowell thought his time would be up but Nigel Pearson’s arrival sparked a revival.

“Nige, Shakey [Craig Shakespeare] and Steve Walsh came in and kept me on,” Stowell continues. “Walshie was great at bringing loans in and we started afresh. We went through six goalkeepers that season. We had an injury to Dave Martin in one game and Carl Pentney, one of our academy lads, was so nervous when I told him he had to go on at half-time that I had to warm him up in the dressing room as he didn’t want the crowd to see he was going on. It was the strangest warm-up in the world!” Leicester romped the league and reached the Championship play-offs the following season.

In 2010, under Sven Goran Erikssen, the East Midlands club appeared to be making a statement. “I loved him as a man, he had time for everyone,” Stowell adds. “We went big with the money but there was an imbalance to the squad. The spending didn’t bring us results.”

Pearson returned for a second time – making Stowell first team coach alongside his keeping duties - and history was about to change. But not before a dramatic Championship play-off semi-final against Watford in May 2013, when Anthony Knockeart stood over an added-time penalty which would put Leicester into the final, only for Manuel Almunia to make a stunning double save allowing Watford to counter-attack and score their own winner through Troy Deeney.

“On our bench that day we had Danny Drinkwater, Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane,” Stowell recalls. “All of us were stood on the touchline ready to sprint on if Knockeart had scored, we knew the final whistle was going to blow. Time just froze after it was saved. When Deeney scored all their fans were on the pitch. All I remember after that is trying to find our players out on the pitch to get them down the tunnel safely and then in the dressing room nobody said a word for an hour. We just left the ground and that was the end of the season.

“I can’t believe how we got the players in the right frame of mind to come back next season but they came back and were so much better, it was like a beast had been woken. Knockeart was brilliant, we were right at it.”

Promotion to the Premier League led to an exciting 2014/15 season when seven wins in the final nine games resulted in the unlikeliest escape from relegation.

“The team was dead and buried, on its knees, nobody has ever recovered from that it was an incredible achievement,” Stowell says. “Then we went away to Thailand at the end of the season – that infamous trip. We were at Vichai’s [owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha] family home when the news got out about the foolishness of our Under-23 players. Nige was distraught.”

The behaviour of several young players in a Bangkok hotel room ultimately led to the dismissal of Pearson ahead of the 2015/16 season, one that would bring an incredible Premier League title.

“Me, Shakey, Walshie and Dave Rennie did pre-season in Austria when we heard that Claudio Ranieri was coming in. He just observed training to start with. He said our training wasn’t how he worked in Italy but he was going to roll with it, that was his greatest strength, letting us get on with it. Everything just clicked, you’ll never see a season like that ever again. Claudio left us to train the players, he obviously picked the team, but it was Nige’s team really. Claudio’s genius was making us a 4-4-2 side. Wes Morgan and Robert Huth were so strong at the back and Riyad Mahrez was unbelievable out on the wing. All the players were fantastic.”

Over the next two seasons outgoing players were not properly replaced, with Shakespeare and Claude Puel struggling to make an impact as head coach, but the helicopter crash at the stadium in 2018 overshadowed anything that took place on the pitch. Vichai and four others were killed, and his son ‘Top’ was thrust into the role of chairman.

“It was an incredibly sad time,” Stowell continues. “Vichai was such a great man. I remember hugging Top in the days after and we both had tears in our eyes. I told him he would become what his dad was and he would have the strength to carry on. There was a lot emotion at that time, the outpouring of love for Vichai was something else.”

Brendan Rodgers, who Stowell describes as “Tactically incredible and really knowledgeable about the game”, won the FA Cup with Leicester at the end of the 2020/21 lockdown season, when just 20,000 fans were allowed into Wembley.

“We went one up with an unbelievable strike be Youri Tielemans,” Stowell adds. “Then we had also had that last minute goal from Chelsea ruled out by VAR. There was a bigger roar for that being ruled out than for our goal. Kasper Schmeichel made two world class saves that day too, he was great to work with. I remember going back to the house I rented in Leicester and the next day I was out cutting the lawn. I have two elderly neighbours and they popped their heads over the fence to thank me for fulfilling their lifelong dream and then asked, ‘Why are you cutting the lawn, you should be out celebrating?!’”

Last season ended in relegation after a late managerial change in April failed to make an impact. Dean Smith’s contract was not extended and after 18 years at the club Stowell’s time was up as a new broom swept in with Enzo Maresca.

“The investment in the facilities at the training ground from the owners has been above and beyond what anyone could have expected,” Stowell reflects. “There will be a rebuild job on the pitch and it’s time for the club to regroup but they have a great chance of getting straight back up. They’ll have their time again.”

And for the long-serving coach, what comes next?

“I’m proud to have done 18 years as a coach at the top echelons of football. Sometimes if you lose five games you’re out, so to stay in the game so long is fantastic. But I’m nowhere near done. I’m 58 and feel really fit, keep myself in great shape and I just love coaching. This is not retirement!”