Alan Gow ready to make up for lost time

THE plotting of Alan Gow's movements in recent years depicts a gradual move south and the player is aware that his career trajectory has been on a similar downward trend.

Almost always this has been due to circumstances outwith his control. His arrival at Hibs in the dying hours of the most recent transfer window was facilitated by a set of circumstances at Plymouth which saw him reduced to playing bounce games. Paul Sturrock signed Gow, but left his post as manager within weeks. Paul Mariner, his replacement, let Gow know the football he wanted to play would not suit him.

This continued a run of misfortune which can be traced back to the days before Gow signed for Rangers. Paul Le Guen had done the initial running in the moves to wrestle the player from Falkirk, where he had flourished under John Hughes. But then Le Guen left, and though the deal went through after Walter Smith had assured him he was still wanted, it soon became clear that Gow's Ibrox career would be framed by frustration. He rarely played and a successful loan spell at Blackpool was followed by a less successful one at Norwich City. On top of this, a projected move to Wolves was cancelled after a medical test revealed a small tear in his hip bone.

It's not difficult to see why Gow jumped at the chance to work with Hughes again at Hibs, even though he was preparing to make up the trio of acquisitions that Aberdeen manager Mark McGhee thought he had recruited from Plymouth. In the end only Steven MacLean and Jim Paterson made it to Pittodrie on Monday. Gow, motivated by the memories of his form under Hughes and assistant Brian Rice at Falkirk, dug his heels in.

"The club (Plymouth] were probably wanting me to go to Aberdeen," he said. "They had a package deal in place and it suited them better. I had a deal in place with Csaba Laszlo at Hearts but obviously he got sacked before the deadline. Jim Jefferies still wanted to do it but once I spoke to the manager here I told the club I only wanted to come to Hibs."

"I appreciate what they (Hughes and Rice] have done for me before," added Gow. "They helped get me the moves I have had so far in my career. I enjoyed playing under them – so I wanted to come here and enjoy myself again. I just said I was not going anywhere unless it was Hibs, and that was the end of it."

But at 3pm on Monday, just hours before the transfer window closed, Gow was still in Plymouth. Hughes had already written off the prospect of adding to the squad when he received news of the player's predicament.

"We nipped in there and took him off the toes of Aberdeen," smiled Hughes yesterday, as he looked forward to tomorrow's Active Nation Scottish Cup fifth-round tie with Montrose at Easter Road. "I have spoken to Mark (McGhee] and I won't tell you what he said to me. My relationship with Gowser, in terms of keeping in touch with him, meant I knew what was happening. We are just thankful and grateful he showed a real appetite to come here, because it was well down the line to him going to Aberdeen."

Some Hibs fans are drooling at the prospect of an all-new Famous Five, with Hughes himself having entertained the notion. He has admitted considering fielding strikers Derek Riordan, Anthony Stokes, Colin Nish, Abdessalam Benjelloun and Gow in the same team. But he warned the newest arrival that he has a fight on his hands to pin-down a place in the side. "If he can do some of the stuff at Hibs as did for me at Falkirk then I think he can become a real favourite of the fans," he said. "But he might have to be patient."