Rowan Vine

Rowan Vine

Basingstoke born Rowan Vine was snapped up at a young age by Portsmouth, but his youth academy days saw him flit between Portsmouth and Southampton before ending up at Portsmouth where he broke into the first team in December 2000 at the age of 18 against Sheffield United. Rowan struggled for consistent minutes at Portsmouth, therefore to continue his development, he moved to Brentford who were competing in Division 2 at that time. 

After a successful loan at Griffin Park, where he scored on his debut, he went on to notch 10 goals in 42 appearances. He was still unable to break back into the Portsmouth first team, so loans to Colchester and Luton Town followed. Rowan joined Luton Town as we were in the midst of a League 1 title winning season in 2004/05, with his 9 goals being vital, as well as his partnership up front with Steve Howard, where Rowan was instrumental in providing assists and dazzled the Luton fans with his drive, perseverance and continuous chasing of the ball throughout matches. Prior to embarking on the first season back in the second tier in over a decade, Luton Town made his loan permanent with a fee in the region of £250,000. Although Rowan missed the beginning of the season, he still ended with a total of 10 goals in 30 games, and again his partnership with Steve Howard was key in a 10th place finish, although the Town had been flirting with the playoffs for the majority of the season. Following Steve Howards’ departure from Luton Town at the beginning of the 2006/07 season, Rowan stepped up to be the main striker, and his all action play started alerting scouts. To the dismay of Luton Town fans, the club were compelled to accept a bid in the region of £2.5 million from promotion bound Birmingham City for Rowan Vine, although prior to his departure in January he had notched 12 goals.

Following Birmingham’s promotion and just 1 goal from Rowan, they allowed him to move on loan to Queens Park Rangers, which was successful, and led to a permanent transfer for a fee in the region of £1 million in January 2008. Unfortunately during a training session in March 2008, Vine suffered a bad leg break, after which, following his recovery he had fallen out of favour at Queens Park Rangers. Loan moves followed to Hull City, Brentford, Milton Keynes, Exeter and Gillingham, before he was released by Queens Park Rangers at the end of the 2011/12 season, and Rowan moved north of the border to ply his trade in the Scottish Premier League with St. Johnstone and then Hibernian. Following a mutual termination with Hibernian, he played for Greenock Morton in the Scottish Championship, before moving back down south to Welling United and after a short spell with them, he would go onto play for various teams throughout the Non League pyramid; Havant & Waterloovile, Gosport Borough, Southall, Hayes & Yeading, Hartley Wintney, Arlesford Town, Southall, Moneyfields, Tadley Calleva before ending up at Hemel Hempstead Town as a player coach for 2020/21 season. 

Rowan has since forayed into management, cutting his teeth at former club Hartley Wintney.