QUINCY ROWE: “SIR, YOU’RE TIKTOK FAMOUS!”

Our captain and centre-half discusses his first half-season in Tolworth, what it takes to get out of Step 5 and the perils of being a school teacher when you’re post-match interviews take off on TikTok!

Quincy, let’s start by talking about your move here and how you came to join Casuals this season.

I’ve known Mu for a while and when he took over, because he was a friend, you watch out for the results and whatnot. Then I saw him on a team night out after last season and we said, “Let’s speak in the summer.”

I fancied a change, to be honest. I’d been at Westfield for two years, we’d done really well the first season, finishing third and being unfortunate to lose in the play-off finals. Then I just thought I’d like a new challenge. I liked what Mu was building and based on the players that he was getting down, I thought this is definitely a good project that I’d like to be a part of. So yeah, man, me and Mu just made it happen.

How have you found it since you came in?

I’ve found it really good. Being an older player, it’s about what you can bring as well as being a good player, first and foremost. It’s a question of what else can you bring, what else can you add to the change room and the young players? And I’m really liking that we’ve got a lot of young players that haven’t played at this level before, alongside players that have dropped down.

So, it’s finding a balance to try and motivate people, to get them up and get them to believe in this. At times it’s been difficult, but we are moulding together and we are coming good.

I think you see that in the inconsistent performance. Like, we’ll put in amazing performances and then, at times, it’s lacklustre, and it’s just trying to get that balance and trying to let everyone know what it takes to get out of this league, because I’ve done it before. But I’m really liking it, man – the changing room’s growing, it’s getting better. It’s been really good, really positive and there’s some really good boys in there.

It must be a nice playing alongside a centre-back of Clayton’s quality and experience. The guy’s played professionally and it shows.

Honestly, I’ve never met a centre-back like him, where anytime the ball’s in the air, he’s just gonna head it back to the keeper with no issues. I’ve never seen someone do it so well – he’s really calm. And the best thing is we’re really close off the pitch too – we talk to each other and he’s a really nice guy, so that just makes it 10 times easier to play alongside him. We communicate really well on and off the pitch, and hopefully you can see that… especially against Redhill last week. It’s really good to have Clayton – love him.

That 0-0 at Redhill recently was a game where you had to deal with their strikers early and win your headers, and both of you did that.

Yeah, I’ve played against those strikers before and they’ve been doing quite well, scoring some goals. So, it was one of them where me and Clayton spoke before the game and just said, “We know what we’ve got to do. If we can set the level and dominate our opposite numbers, then everybody else will take heed and we can kick on from there.”

It was a case of… we win our first tackle, we make our first pass, we win our first headers, and then hopefully that filters through the team, which I think it did because we were on it that day, all of us.

You mentioned that you’ve got out of this division before, in your time with Chertsey, where you won the FA Vase as well. What was that like?

That was a bit of a funny one because at the time I was playing at Step 3 with Tooting and I knew one of my pals, Kevin McLaren, had embarked on this Chertsey journey.

Initially I was like, “I don’t really want to drop to Step 5, but it was one of the best things I ever did. One, because I won the Vase, but also because I got to meet so many different, quality players and build a really nice club.

So, yeah, I know what it takes to win this league and that’s consistency. And Tuesday nights. Nobody loves a Tuesday night. Everyone can get up for the weekend, but it’s those Tuesday nights which are difficult, and our manager was honestly relentless in hammering home to us the importance of Tuesdays – everyone’s been at work but the attitude has to be right. So that’s where we won it. We conceded a ridiculously low amount of goals and it was just momentum.

 Hopefully, we can do the same at Casuals because we’re in a great position. 

Yeah, it is has been Tuesday away results that have been damaging us, hasn’t it? We’ve got to get that same mentality here.

That’s exactly it, so it is a work in progress, but it will get there. For example, the Tadley game we lost recently was disappointing, but we were in the game until we started making silly mistakes. We’ve just got to eradicate those silly mistakes because we’re a really good team with some really threatening forwards, and once a goal goes in it’s easy to get disheartened. But we’re going to pick it up and once we get that Tuesday win, we won’t look back, I promise you.

Finally, what do you do for a living?

I’m a PE teacher and Head of Year 10. Actually, the students found me on the club’s TikTok and I’ve been getting badgered at school! “Sir, I saw you on TikTok – you’re TikTok famous, can you sign my planner?”

That was a wild two weeks, so whatever you’re doing on TikTok is absolutely working!
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They all know I play football, but because a lot of them just started seeing it on TikTok, they’re like, “You actually are good!” Yeah, it’s been nice. It’s a very gruelling, very busy job – physically and emotionally taxing, so football is my release, man.