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 lea ...

. A striker, Vine previously played League football for

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West (London sub region), West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the River Thames, Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has dive ...

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 level of the English football league system. Founded in 1937, the club spent its ea ...

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", L ...

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional 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. The team compete in the ...

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional association football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English f ...

(QPR),

Hull City Hull City Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. They compete in the , the second level of the English football league system. They play their home ...

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 EFL League Two, the fourth level of the English football leag ...

Exeter City Exeter City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Exeter, Devon, England. The team play in , the third level of the English football league system. Known as "the Grecians", the origin of their nickname is subject to ...

, Gillingham,

St Johnstone St Johnstone Football Club is a professional association football club in Perth, Scotland. The team competes in the , the second division of Scottish football. The club's name is derived from St John's Toun (or Saint Johnstoun)—an old name o ...

, Hibernian and

Greenock Morton Greenock Morton Football Club is a Scottish professional football club, which plays in the . The club was founded as Morton Football Club in 1874, making it one of the oldest Scottish clubs. Morton was renamed Greenock Morton in 1994 to celebr ...

, and

non-league football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

for

Welling United Welling United Football Club is a semi-professional association football club, based in Welling in the London Borough of Bexley, England. The most prominent aspect of the club is its men's first team, who play in the , the seventh level of the E ...

, Havant & Waterlooville, Gosport Borough (three spells), Basingstoke Town,

Southall Southall () is a large suburban town in 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 ...

(two spells), Alresford Town, Moneyfields, Tadley Calleva and Hemel Hempstead Town.

Career

Vine was born in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is a town in Hampshire, situated in south-central England across a valley at the source of the River Loddon on the western edge of the North Downs. It is the largest settlement in Hampshire without city status in the United King ...

, and began his career at

, 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 based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history ...

in December 2000. However, he struggled to break into the side on a regular basis and was loaned out to Division Two side

for the 2002–03 season. Vine enjoyed a successful campaign at

Griffin Park Griffin Park was a association football, football ground in Brentford in the London Borough of Hounslow, England. It was the home ground of Brentford F.C. from its opening in September 1904 to August 2020. The ground was in a predominantly resi ...

, netting his first ever goal on his debut in a 2–0 win at

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. They compete in , the third tier of English football league system, English football. Huddersfield Town we ...

, 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

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

for the 2004–05 season. Vine's nine goals helped the Hatters clinch the League One 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 Assists" – 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 The English Football League Championship, known simply as the Championship and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Betting & Gaming, Sky Bet Championship, is a professional association football league in England and Wales. Contested by 24 clubs, i ...

club

on 11 January 2007; the fee was to rise to £3m if Birmingham gained promotion to the

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

. 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 in Derby, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system. One of the 12 founder members of the English Football ...

in March 2007, but he played 17 times as the club were promoted as runners-up. On 2 October 2007, he joined

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 (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...

and

fibula The fibula (: fibulae or fibulas) 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. ...

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 Neil Warnock (born 1 December 1948) is an English football manager and former player who is currently football advisor at Torquay United. He is also a television and radio pundit. In a managerial career spanning five decades, Warnock has managed ...

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 id ...

for the new season. He joined

on a month's loan on 1 October, and made his debut the following day at the

KC Stadium The MKM Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Kingston upon Hull, England. It has a current capacity of 25,586. The stadium is home to both association football club Hull City A.F.C. of the EFL Championship and rugby league club Hull F.C. of ...

in a goalless draw with

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Coventry, West Midlands. The club plays in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club is nicknamed The Sky Blues after the sky blue colou ...

. On 25 November 2010 he started a loan period at

until 4 January 2011, but never played. He joined

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 town in Greater Manchester, England, and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale. In the United Kingdom 2021 Census, 2021 Census, the town had a population of 111,261, compared to 223,773 for the wid ...

. A trial with

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system after winning the 202 ...

in July 2011 came to nothing, and at the start of the 2011–12 season, Vine spent time on loan at

. 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, which competes in the National League, the fifth level of English football. The team are known as "The Shrimpers", a reference ...

, 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 Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club (), often known simply as Dagenham and abbreviated when written to Dag & Red, is a professional association football club based in Dagenham, Greater London, England that play in the , the sixth level of the En ...

. 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 The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the Scottish football league system, top-level league competition for professional Association football, football clubs in Scotland. The league was founded in 1998, when it broke away from the Scottish Foo ...

club

. 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 Motherwell (, ) is a List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, town and former burgh in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, south east of Glasgow. It has a population of around 32,120. Shires of Scotland, Historically in the p ...

. 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 Foot ...

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 H ...

. After a match against Celtic in October, opposing manager

Neil Lennon Neil Francis Lennon (born 25 June 1971) is a Northern Irish professional football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He currently manages Scottish Championship club Dunfermline Athletic. During his playing career he represe ...

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 The Scottish Football Association (; also known as the Scottish FA and the SFA) is the governing body of football in Scotland and has the ultimate responsibility for the control and development of football in Scotland. Members of the SFA incl ...

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. During his playing career as a defender, Butcher captained the England national team, winning 77 caps in a ten-year international career that feature ...

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

. 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, officially known as Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in England. The National League is the first division of the National Leagues and step 1 of the National Le ...

club

in January 2015. He played only twice, and after a brief spell with Havant & Waterlooville, he joined

National League South The National League South, officially Vanarama National League South, is a professional Association football league in England. National League South is the second division of the National League (English football), National Leagues and step ...

club Gosport Borough in October 2015. After a brief period with Basingstoke Town 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

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

, Vine rejoined Gosport in March 2018. In 2018-19, Vine played for

Wessex League The Wessex Football League, known as the Velocity Wessex Football League for sponsorship reasons, is an English regional men's football league in southern England. Its members are primarily from Hampshire and Dorset, but clubs from adjoining co ...

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 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 19 September 2023, it was announced that the club and Vine had parted ways.

Career statistics

Honours

Luton Town *

Football League One The English Football League One, known as Sky Bet League One for sponsorship reasons, or simply League One, is a professional association football league in England. EFL League One is the second-highest division of the English Football League an ...

: 2004–05 Birmingham City *

second-place promotion: 2006–07 Individual *

Football League One Player of the Month The EFL League One Player of the Month is an association football award that recognises the player adjudged the best for each month of the season in EFL League One, the English football league system, third tier of English football. Originally nam ...

: 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 21st-century English sportsmen