Jamal Lowe: I was the star boy whose career collapsed - then Portsmouth saved me. The remarkable rise, fall and rise of Swansea and ex-Wigan and QPR man

Titled ‘Lowe Price’, the Portsmouth News article carried an interview with Hampton & Richmond chairman Steve McPherson proclaiming the forward would become a million-pound player.

Quite a fanfare to greet the 22-year-old following his January 2017 arrival at Pompey after plundering 23 goals for the National South club, with Lowe buying four copies to preserve the moment.

The Fratton Park move marked his return to the Football League following three-and-a-half years away, a nomadic period which saw him feature for nine non-league clubs, become a school PE teacher, and contemplate setting himself up as a personal trainer.

Lowe would go on to net 29 times in 119 outings for Pompey, helping them to the League Two title and Checkatrade Trophy success.

Since leaving the Blues in August 2019, he has turned out in the Premier League and Championship, thereby featuring in the top seven leagues of the English game, while appearing internationally for Jamaica.

And, for the record, there have been two million-pound moves – Wigan and Bournemouth.

‘At Barnet I was 18 and thought that was it, I had cracked it. I’d started a few League Two games and been talked about in the club as the star boy, taking all the corners and free-kicks,’ Lowe told The News.

‘In my mind, at that stage I was a big thing. A couple more games or maybe at the end of the season and I’d get a move. Then it all collapsed.

‘When non-league hits you, you go from club to club, then get a job, only for the hours to conflict with your non-league training hours, so I had to leave certain clubs.

‘I couldn’t just quit my job, I needed to work, that was the reality of it, you’ve got to make money at the end of the day. I was trying to chase my dream, but I also needed money in the bank to feed myself.

‘When at Hampton & Richmond, I quit my job coaching PE in a school, I was going full out, fully focused on fitness. With the little money I’d saved, I bought gym membership, while still had the coaching equipment from my job. I could have given it to them, but I’d bought most of it myself.

‘Holland & Barrett had a mad deal on protein shakes, a crazy deal where it was buy one tub for £45 and the second was for 1p, with strawberry, chocolate or vanilla my favourites. Pennies were tight, if there wasn’t a deal then I wasn’t getting them.

‘I was also going to be a personal trainer. I wanted to be like Jamie ‘Velocity’ Reynolds, who works for Nike, doing one-to-one training sessions with the best of the best, like Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and Ronaldo.

‘The idea was to start off with non-league footballers, trying to work my way up. After all, I had balls, cones, hurdles and ladders, while trained at West Harrow Park, near my mum’s house. There was also Greenford Recreation Ground, where we’d climb over the locked gates to train.

‘It began by training by myself, then my friend Nicke Kabamba came along with a few other boys who were playing Conference South. At one stage I thought “Do you know what, this could actually be a thing”.

‘At one stage we had 10 players and I’m setting up the session with boxing pads, battle ropes, burpees. Suddenly we’re playing 4 versus 4 with a floater. I wasn’t charging anyone, but maybe if I made it £5 a session then this could be a new thing?

‘I was almost there. Thankfully Paul Cook and Pompey came along and saved the day!’

Lowe has established a career from conquering adversity, surviving a succession of set-backs stemming from being released by QPR at the age of 16.

Rangers possessed a fellow left-winger in the age group below who purportedly demonstrated more promise. His name was Raheem Sterling.

Now searching for a new club, Lowe was unable to attend a trial at Barnet as it clashed with a family holiday, with friend Callum Adebiyi earning a scholarship in his absence.

Instead, upon his return, he impressed Barnet sufficiently to be offered a place on an education programme at Stanmore College, studying for an NVQ in Sports Science over three years.

It involved football training with the college three days a week alongside studies, with the potential of working with Barnet’s youth-team.

He added: ‘It was like a development programme separate to the youth-team. The dream of Stanmore College was if you do well here then you might get the chance to train with Barnet’s youth-team.

‘To be fair, it happened to me quite quickly. In my opening five games I scored two hat-tricks and a couple of braces - and was then asked to train with them.

‘I ended up being involved with Barnet’s first-team in 2012-13, but not being paid as I was still on a college programme and didn’t have a scholarship. What’s more, I was paying £200 a term for college – so effectively we were paying to play for Barnet’s first-team!

‘In the end my dad got involved and the college told us not to worry about paying term fees, although I still wasn’t getting a wage at Barnet.

‘My mum would give me £4 – two £2 coins – whenever I travelled with the first-team to matches. You know what service stations are like, though, expensive!

‘Everyone was getting off the coach and I remember sitting there thinking “Is there any point in me leaving this seat? I’ve got £2 left in my pocket”. I remember it so strongly.

‘Then one day my team-mates Ricky Holmes and Jon Nurse asked if I wanted anything – they were buying. Lucozade, sweets, snacks, whatever, it was on them. From that point they did it on every away trip. I will never forget that.’

Lowe made his Barnet debut in August 2012, yet two months later the Bees were bottom of League Two and unveiled Edgar Davids as player-manager, alongside Mark Robson.

The Dutch international had been a midfielder of some distinction at Ajax, AC Milan, Juventus, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Spurs and Crystal Palace. Now he was overseeing a side clutching three points from their opening 11 matches.

His first match in charge was a 4-1 home defeat to Plymouth, with Lowe featuring as an 80th-minute substitute – despite having been banished from first-team training on Davids’ first day.

He added: ‘Davids wasn’t feeling me at all. It began with him demonstrating a passing drill in his first training session. The idea was, before you receive the pass, you pretend you’re losing the defender, run away and then come back.

‘I did it the first time – perfect. Then we’ve done it again – perfect. Then Davids said “Okay, we’re going to do it again" – and he’s doing the drill with me.

‘I’ve gone away, really sharp because everyone’s trying to impress the gaffer, zinging it about, then I came back for his pass and he rapped it at me. Probably the hardest pass I have received to this day.

‘I went to hit it back first time and it ballooned straight over his head, so he stopped the session.

‘Looking at me, he shouted: ‘If that’s how you’re going to train, go back with the kids’. That was that. I had to walk all the way back to the youth-team changing room, the lads were asking what I was doing there.

‘It was extremely harsh. Due to that one touch, I trained with the youth-team for the next month, but still played for the first-team on occasions.

‘Speaking to senior lads, they thought Davids was trying to stamp his authority on his first day. If you’re trying to shake up the group, though, don’t pick on the youngest guy, that’s not really showing anything. It’s the easy option.

‘Doing that to a senior pro sends more of a message. But no, you've stuck it on the kid who has just come up from the youth-team.

‘Davids was very different as a manager, he had a real ego, rightly or wrongly. When it was raining, sometimes he’d drive his Bentley down from the car park along this massive path to the pitches. Then he’d watch training while sitting in it.

‘Barnet’s training ground was right next to Wembley, so any international team which came to play England would play there. Once Ronaldinho and Neymar were there when Brazil visited.

‘On another occasion, Chile came down, so we were watching Alexis Sanchez before it was time for us to start our training.

‘Then, as we started to drift away, Davids came running out in Chile’s kit and joined in their training rather than taking us. He then did the whole session with them, it was mad!’

After three appearances under the new boss, Lowe never played for Davids again, instead loaned to Hayes & Yeading and then Boreham Wood for the remainder of the season.

With Barnet now in Conference Premier in 2013-14, the pattern continued, with loans at Hitchin Town and St Albans.

When Bees manager Martin Allen released him in January 2015, Lowe moved permanently to St Albans, having racked up six loan spells by the age of 20.

‘There were so many loans, three-month loans too, not even a whole season, so you can’t settle,’ he said.

‘You learn about a whole new team, a new manager, meet new training staff, and you’re driving to new locations. I was moving around for ages.

‘When you’re released, like me at Barnet, it’s tough. If you aren’t ready for the real world then you can be in for real trouble. Football’s such a bubble, it's hard to adjust to the real world.

‘Luckily for me, it was quite early in my life, if something like that were to happen now, it would be a lot harder to adjust. Still, it was sink or swim, that’s the game we’re in.

‘While playing part-time, I worked as a football coach at Coombe Hill Junior School (New Malden), taking the after-school club from 3.30-4.30pm.

‘It was for a company called Love The Ball and, when those sessions became booked up with more kids wanting to go, I set up a lunchtime class as well. Then I was asked to take all the school’s PE sessions!

‘At the same time, I coached Metropolitan Police’s under-15s one evening and the under-9s on Sundays.

‘I worked at the school for two years then quit in June 2016 to focus more on trying to be a personal trainer. Six months later I was playing with Pompey in League Two.’

On this month’s deadline day, Lowe departed Bournemouth to return to former club Swansea on loan until January.

Now aged 29, it has been four years since leaving Fratton Park – and past struggles continue to drive his future.

‘These days, whenever I see our youngsters looking at all the stuff in service stations, trying to calculate if he can afford this or get that, I will step in and pay,’ Lowe added.

‘That’s one thing I’m going to carry on doing until the day I finish, because it’s a horrible feeling – and I know there are better times ahead.’