FA Cup: Worthing owner George Dowell due to become a dad on first round weekend

George Dowell has a decision to make on FA Cup first-round weekend.

Does he stay behind in Sussex to be at his girlfriend’s side when Jessica gives birth to the couple’s first child?

Or does he make the 420-mile round trip to Alfreton for Worthing’s biggest FA Cup tie for 24 years?

It is something Dowell, 31, has thought long and hard about – just as he thought long and hard what to do with the compensation he received after the accident that changed his life forever.

In 2010, Dowell was a student at Worthing College who loved playing football.

Aged 17, he was on the brink of the first team at Worthing, his hometown club, who were playing in the eighth tier of English football.

A trip to a fast-food restaurant with friends changed everything. Dowell was a front seat passenger in a car that was involved in an accident.

While the driver and two other passengers escaped with cuts and bruises, Dowell had to be cut out of the wreckage.

“I was told I would probably never walk again,” Dowell, who suffered serious spinal injuries and has spent the past 13 years in a wheelchair, told BBC Sport.

Five years after the accident that left him paralysed from the chest down, he bought the club he used to play for using his compensation to help financially-troubled Worthing.

“As much as I saved the club, the club saved me,” he says.

‘I felt my life was over’

Dowell recalls the events of Tuesday, 13 April 2010 as though it was yesterday. It was the day his life changed forever.

“I couldn’t feel anything,” he says of his thoughts immediately after the accident.

“I remember screaming to my friends. I was taken to hospital in Chichester first and the medics were asking me ‘can you feel this, can you feel that?’ I couldn’t feel a thing.”

Two weeks after the accident, Dowell had been transferred to a spinal treatment centre in Salisbury and learned life would never be the same again.

“I was very active and sporty before the accident,” he added. “They were very blunt at the spinal centre.

“When I was told I would probably never walk again you’re thinking ‘I’m never going to play football again, I’m never going to do the things I love doing again’. I felt my life was over.”

Dowell spent 10 months at the spinal treatment centre.

His mum, Linda, quit her job at a pharmaceutical suppliers in Worthing, 75 miles from Salisbury, to move closer to her son.

“I was on my back for three months unable to move my head or arms,” he recalled. “Then I tried getting up. I was sick all the time because I had been lying down for so long and my blood pressure was all over the place.

“It was a hard few months. But they are very good at the hospital. It was a very positive environment and I quickly realised this was going to be my life now.”

Dowell returned home in 2011 but says he got “stuck in a rut” as he tried to adapt to life in a wheelchair. The accident had put paid to a career in football, or so he thought.

‘Pulled me out of my shell’

With debts of almost £200,000 and requiring £6,000 a month just to open their doors, Worthing were in a financial mess in 2014.

“I read an article in the paper that stated they were in real trouble and just weeks away from folding all together,” added Dowell.

“After asking questions to people at the club I thought this would be something I’d love to get involved with, and a great opportunity for me to get back into football in a different way.”

In March 2015, at the age of 22, Dowell became one of the youngest football club owners in the country after ploughing some of his compensation pay out into the ailing club.

“I had no experience of running a business, I was just a mad football fan,” he said. “In the early days it was quite stressful but you learn quickly. It pulled me out of my shell.”

In Dowell’s eight years at the helm, Worthing have won two promotions on their 3G pitch and sit eighth in National League South, one point off the play-offs.

The club – nicknamed the Rebels – were struggling to attract crowds of 200 when Dowell took charge. This season the average gate at the Sussex Transport Community Stadium is around 1,500.

Former Brighton captain Adam Hinshelwood, whose 18-year-old son Jack made his first Premier League start for the Seagulls in September, is manager and has steered the team to within one win of a first appearance in the FA Cup second round for 41 years.

FA Cup or maternity ward?

So will Dowell be at Alfreton on Saturday to watch his team or will he be at Jessica’s side when she gives birth?

“I can’t miss the birth,” he said. “I’ve arranged for a live stream so I can watch it on my laptop back in Worthing.”

Whatever the outcome on the pitch this weekend, Dowell says becoming owner of Worthing has given him a sense of purpose.

“I didn’t know what life in a wheelchair was going to look like,” he added. “With time you get used to your body and your situation.

“I try to focus on what I can do and try and make the most of it. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You’ve just got to look for them and have a crack at it.”