I made over 350 appearances for Newcastle United and Leeds - now I’m a football manager in the Caribbean

Bowyer made just-shy of 100 appearances for Newcastle United during his three-year stay at St James’ Park. The former Leeds United midfielder also represented Charlton Athletic, West Ham, Birmingham City and Ipswich Town during his playing career before turning to football management.

Bowyer, now 47, took charge of Charlton Athletic in March 2018 and helped the Addicks secure promotion to the Championship a season later with a dramatic late win over Sunderland in the play-off final at Wembley. He would spend three years in total at the Valley before being appointed Birmingham City manager in March 2021. 

Bowyer would last just over a year before leaving his post as Blues boss and was out of work for a little over 13 months before being appointed as manager of Caribbean nation Montserrat. Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory with a population of around 5,000.

Bowyer has guided Montserrat to four wins from his 12 games in charge since being appointed as manager in September 2023. Ahead of games against Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and El Salvador in the Concacaf Nations League in the upcoming international break, Bowyer spoke to the BBC’s Football News Show to detail what life is like in his current role out in the Caribbean: “It's very good. Something completely different, different to what I’ve done in the past. Obviously being in England, managing in the Championship and League One, this is completely different, there’s a lot of travelling but you get to see different parts of the world and it's good.

“I just felt it was a difficult challenge. I spoke to the president of Montserrat and he told me about the journey they want to go on. We had World Cup qualifiers in the summer and were hoping to reach the knockout stages in the World Cup qualifiers.

“That was a big draw for me, that and working with different levels of players because our players, it's tough we have some who play league football back home in the EFL and some playing non-league who have jobs as well as playing for their team.”