Rowan Lewis Vine (born 21 September 1982) is an English former
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
.
A
striker, Vine previously played League football for
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
,
Brentford,
Colchester United
Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system.
Founded in 1937, the club spent its earl ...
,
Luton Town
Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...
,
Birmingham City
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Sin ...
,
Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...
(QPR),
Hull City
Hull City Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving from Boothferry Park in 2002. The club's t ...
,
Milton Keynes Dons
Milton Keynes Dons Football Club (), usually abbreviated to MK Dons, is a professional association football club based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The ...
,
Exeter City
Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third tier of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...
,
Gillingham,
St Johnstone,
Hibernian and
Greenock Morton
Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...
, and
non-league football for
Welling United
Welling United Football Club is a professional football club, based in Welling in the London Borough of Bexley, England. The club's first team play in the National League South, at the sixth tier of English football.
History
Welling United Foot ...
,
Havant & Waterlooville
Havant & Waterlooville Football Club is a professional football club based in Havant, Hampshire, England. The club participates in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football, after relegation from the National League in the ...
,
Gosport Borough (three spells),
Basingstoke Town
Basingstoke Town Football Club is a football club based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. The club are currently members of the and play at the Winklebury Sports Complex. Their motto, 'Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum', means 'Never a step backward' ...
,
Southall
Southall () is a large suburban county of West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided ...
(two spells),
Hayes & Yeading United,
Hartley Wintney
Hartley Wintney is a large village and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It lies about northwest of Fleet and east of Basingstoke. The parish includes the smaller contiguous village of Phoenix Green as well as the ham ...
(two spells),
Alresford Town,
Moneyfields,
Tadley Calleva and
Hemel Hempstead Town
Hemel Hempstead Town Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Affiliated to the Hertfordshire County Football Association, they are currently members of the National League South and pl ...
.
Career
Vine was born in
Basingstoke, and began his career at
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, making his way through the club's youth scheme. He made his first-team debut at the age of 18, in a goalless draw with
Sheffield United
Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...
in December 2000.
[ However, he struggled to break into the side on a regular basis and was loaned out to Division Two side Brentford for the 2002–03 season.
Vine enjoyed a successful campaign at Griffin Park, netting his first ever goal on his debut in a 2–0 win at ]Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . The team have played home games at the Kirklees Stadium since moving from Leeds Road in 1994. Th ...
, and going on to score 13 further goals in 44 starts for the Bees.[ Despite his impressive season, he was again loaned out, this time to ]Colchester United
Colchester United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Colchester, Essex, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system.
Founded in 1937, the club spent its earl ...
for the 2003–04 campaign; he scored 10 league goals in 30 starts.[
For the third year running, Vine spent an entire season away from Portsmouth on loan, this time at ]Luton Town
Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1885, it is nicknam ...
for the 2004–05 season.[ Vine's nine goals helped the Hatters clinch the ]League One
The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...
title.[ Despite this relative lack of goals for a striker during a season, a section in the ''Luton News'' newspaper showed that Vine was the "King of ]Assist
Assist or ASSIST may refer to:
Sports
Several sports have a statistic known as an "assist", generally relating to action by a player leading to a score by another player on their team:
*Assist (basketball), a pass by a player that facilitates a ba ...
s" – one of the main reasons for the Hatters' success.
Vine signed for Luton for an undisclosed fee, reported as £250,000, on 4 July 2005. In his first season after his permanent move to the club, he scored 10 goals in 30 games[ after missing the start of the season with a back injury. Again, he was near the top of the assist charts.
A £2.5 million deal took Vine to Football League Championship club ]Birmingham City
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Sin ...
on 11 January 2007; the fee was to rise to £3m if Birmingham gained promotion to the Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
. Vine's only goal in his short stay at Birmingham came in a 1–0 win over Derby County
Derby County Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Derby, Derbyshire, England. In 2022, it was announced that DCFC was acquired by Clowes Developments (UK) Ltd, a Derbyshire-based property group.
Founded in 188 ...
in March 2007,[ but he played 17 times as the club were promoted as runners-up.]
On 2 October 2007, he joined Queens Park Rangers
Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus Ro ...
on loan, initially for a month, but later extended into the new year. Vine signed a four-and-a-half-year contract with the club on 8 January 2008 for a fee of £1 million.
Vine suffered a serious fracture of his left tibia
The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...
and fibula
The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity i ...
on 3 April 2008 during a training session. He did not make another first-team appearance until April 2009, and thereafter was used mainly as a substitute. Manager Neil Warnock told him in July 2010 that he had no future with the club, and was not given a squad number
In team sports, the number, often referred to as the uniform number, squad number, jersey number, shirt number, sweater number, or similar (with such naming differences varying by sport and region) is the number worn on a player's uniform, to ...
for the new season. He joined Hull City
Hull City Association Football Club is a professional football club based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, that compete in the . They have played home games at the MKM Stadium since moving from Boothferry Park in 2002. The club's t ...
on a month's loan on 1 October, and made his debut the following day at the KC Stadium
The MKM Stadium (also known as the Hull City Stadium due to UEFA sponsorship regulations) is a multi-purpose facility in the city of Kingston upon Hull, England. The stadium was previously called the KC Stadium, but was renamed the KCOM Stadi ...
in a goalless draw with Coventry City
Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed t ...
.[
On 25 November 2010 he started a loan period at Brentford until 4 January 2011, but never played.][ He joined ]Milton Keynes Dons
Milton Keynes Dons Football Club (), usually abbreviated to MK Dons, is a professional association football club based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The ...
on an initial one-month loan on 15 January, and scored his only goal for the club in a 4–1 win at Rochdale
Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...
.[
A trial with ]Doncaster Rovers
Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team compete in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club play their home games at ...
in July 2011 came to nothing, and at the start of the 2011–12 season, Vine spent time on loan at Exeter City
Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third tier of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...
.[ In March 2012, he had a trial with ]Southend United
Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as ...
, but manager Paul Sturrock
Paul Whitehead Sturrock (born 10 October 1956) is a Scottish former football coach and former player.
As a player, Sturrock spent his entire senior career with Dundee United, making more than five hundred appearances between 1974 and 1989. He w ...
expressed concerns over his fitness. He then signed for Gillingham on loan until the end of the season. He scored his only goal for Gillingham in a 2–1 defeat to Dagenham & Redbridge.[
Queens Park Rangers released Vine at the end of the 2011–12 season, and after a trial, he signed a one-year contract with Scottish Premier League club St Johnstone. He made his debut in the opening game of the season, and was ]sent off
In sports, an ejection (also known as dismissal, sending-off, disqualification, or early shower) is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending ...
for a second bookable offence in the next, a 1–1 draw with Motherwell. Citing the poor example he set to his young son, he vowed to pull out of tackles in future rather than risk another sending-off. When scoring for St Johnstone, Vine celebrated by making a 'T' gesture.
On 15 September, Vine scored his first goal for the club, a curling effort ten minutes from time against reigning SPL champions Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
that gave St Johnstone their first win of the season. After the match, he described the goal as "right up there" in his career highlights. He finished the season as joint top scorer in the league, with seven goals, but was not offered a contract extension. New manager Tommy Wright suggested it was down to budgetary constraints, but Vine was critical of the manner in which the club had handled his departure, accusing them of a lack of respect.
Vine moved on to Hibernian on a one-year deal, joining up with St Johnstone teammate Liam Craig
Liam Craig (born 27 December 1986) is a Scottish former professional footballer. He is an attack-minded creative midfield player who operates on the left side of midfield or in a central position. He has played for Falkirk, St Johnstone and ...
. After a match against Celtic in October, opposing manager Neil Lennon
Neil Francis Lennon (born 25 June 1971) is a Northern Irish football coach and former player.
During his playing career he represented English clubs Manchester City, Crewe Alexandra and Leicester City. Lennon moved to Celtic in 2000, where he ...
was critical of Vine's tackling. Vine's retaliation on social media brought him a charge of "making offensive comments on Twitter suggesting the use of violence", but the Scottish Football Association let him off with a warning. After failing to score in 14 appearances,[ he was told by manager ]Terry Butcher
Terry Ian Butcher (born 28 December 1958) is an English football manager and former player. He works as an academy coach for Ipswich Town.
During his playing career as a defender, Butcher captained the England national team, winning 77 caps ...
that he would "struggle to break into the Hibs team", and in January 2014, his contract with Hibernian was cancelled by mutual consent.
As the January 2014 transfer window closed, Vine signed for Greenock Morton
Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the Scottish Championship. The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest senior Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Green ...
. He left Morton in the summer of 2014 after the club were relegated.
Vine returned to England, where he signed for Conference Premier
The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-professi ...
club Welling United
Welling United Football Club is a professional football club, based in Welling in the London Borough of Bexley, England. The club's first team play in the National League South, at the sixth tier of English football.
History
Welling United Foot ...
in January 2015. He played only twice,[ and after a brief spell with ]Havant & Waterlooville
Havant & Waterlooville Football Club is a professional football club based in Havant, Hampshire, England. The club participates in the National League South, the sixth tier of English football, after relegation from the National League in the ...
, he joined National League South club Gosport Borough in October 2015. After a brief period with Basingstoke Town
Basingstoke Town Football Club is a football club based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England. The club are currently members of the and play at the Winklebury Sports Complex. Their motto, 'Vestigia Nulla Retrorsum', means 'Never a step backward' ...
between 2015 and 2016,[ he rejoined Gosport in January 2017.
In February 2017, having made only three appearances since his return to Gosport, Vine joined ]Southall
Southall () is a large suburban county of West London, England, part of the London Borough of Ealing and is one of its seven major towns. It is situated west of Charing Cross and had a population of 69,857 as of 2011. It is generally divided ...
of the Spartan South Midlands League
The Spartan South Midlands Football League is an English football league covering Hertfordshire, northwest Greater London, central Buckinghamshire and southern Bedfordshire. It is a feeder to the Southern Football League or the Isthmian League, ...
. At the beginning of the 2017–18 season, he moved to Hayes & Yeading United.[ Following a four-month spell with ]Hartley Wintney
Hartley Wintney is a large village and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It lies about northwest of Fleet and east of Basingstoke. The parish includes the smaller contiguous village of Phoenix Green as well as the ham ...
, Vine rejoined Gosport in March 2018.
In 2018-19, Vine played for Wessex League
The Wessex Football League is an English association football league formed in 1986, with its premier division currently at the fifth step of the National League System, or the ninth tier of the overall English football league system. The part ...
club Alresford Town before joining Hartley Wintney again in October and then re-joining Southall in December. He joined Moneyfields in February 2019 before joining Tadley Calleva in August 2019. Vine joined Hemel Hempstead Town
Hemel Hempstead Town Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England. Affiliated to the Hertfordshire County Football Association, they are currently members of the National League South and pl ...
as a player-coach for the 2020-21 season.
Managerial career
On 20 January 2023, Vine was appointed manager of former club Hartley Wintney.
On the 19th September 2023, it was announced that the club and Vine had parted ways. [https://www.hartleyfc.com/index.php]
Career statistics
Honours
Luton Town
* Football League One: 2004–05[
Birmingham City
* Football League Championship second-place promotion: 2006–07][
Individual
* Football League One Player of the Month: September 2004
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vine, Rowan
1982 births
Living people
Footballers from Basingstoke
English men's footballers
Men's association football forwards
Portsmouth F.C. players
Brentford F.C. players
Colchester United F.C. players
Luton Town F.C. players
Birmingham City F.C. players
Queens Park Rangers F.C. players
Hull City A.F.C. players
Milton Keynes Dons F.C. players
Exeter City F.C. players
Gillingham F.C. players
St Johnstone F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. players
Greenock Morton F.C. players
Welling United F.C. players
Havant & Waterlooville F.C. players
Gosport Borough F.C. players
Basingstoke Town F.C. players
Southall F.C. players
Hayes & Yeading United F.C. players
Hartley Wintney F.C. players
Alresford Town F.C. players
Moneyfields F.C. players
Hemel Hempstead Town F.C. players
English Football League players
Scottish Premier League players
Scottish Professional Football League players
National League (English football) players
Southern Football League players
Wessex Football League players
Hartley Wintney F.C. managers