King Power Stadium was earlier named Walkers Stadium. Not many is left at Leicester City since the days of Walkers, but one is, goalkeeper coach Mike Stowell.
Stowell joined Leicester City back in 2005, during the time when Craig Levein was in charge and has since been at the club, which now is close to 13 years. His main duty is to look after the goalkeepers, but from time to time and in between manager changes, been called on, to do the assistant job in a caretaker capacity.
He has been there, during relegation to the third tier, winning promotion twice, survival, Premier League Champion, Champions League play, and he has coached a number of goalkeepers during his days with the club.
Kasper Schmeichel must be satisfied with his main coach, since the two has worked together for the last seven seasons and really shows what continuity can do to a team working well together.
He is not the one signing the goalkeepers he is working with, but he might have a word or two to say when that decision is made. A number of goalkeepers has seen the work of Stowell.
Rab Douglas, Paul Henderson, Conrad Logan, David Martin, Mark Bunn, Tony Warner, David Stockdale, Chris Weale, Carl Pentney, Ricardo, Ron Robert-Zieler, Mark Schwarzer, Ben Hamer, Eldin Jakupovc and Danny Ward are the group of goalkeepers who have played in the first team during the days of Stowell.
As a player he is mostly known for his time in goal for Wolverhampton Wanderers, being a legend at The Molineux. He joined Wolves in 1990 after spending five seasons at Everton, as an understudy to Neville Southall and Bobby Mimms, and only got one first team appearance in a cup game v. Millwall, keeping a clean sheet.
After five years at Goodison Park, he joined Wolves. Despite not being offered much first team experience, Stowell was often out on loan, and had played about 50 league games at other places such as Man City and also been at Wolves as well.
The move to Wolves was one that kept him at one place for a long time, 11 years to be precisely. In those 11 years, Stowell played 378 league games and is one of very few goalkeepers to be offered a testimonial which took place in the year 2000, playing Aston Villa. A short spell at Bristol City came after, before Stowell turned to coaching.
During his days with Leicester City he has been in the capacity of caretaker four times, 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2017. He has stayed loyal and been there whenever the owners have called up him to help out in difficult circumstances.
To see such continuity in the world of professional football is unique and these types of people are important. They keeps their head down and just goes on with their work.
He was actually once sacked at Leicester City, back in 2007, he had to leave together with Rob Kelly, but was reinstated by new appointed manager Martin Allen, and you could say that Allen in a very short stay at the club managed to save Stowell, so we must say he made one good move.
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