Shrewsbury hero Ryan Bowman aims to kick on
Shrewsbury hat-trick hero Ryan Bowman hopes his perfect treble can help him put his heart scare behind him.
The 29-year-old striker grabbed the headlines with a stunning trio of goals – consisting of a header, left foot and right-footed strike – in Saturday’s impressive 4-1 home win over Cambridge.
The perfect hat-trick, featuring his first Montgomery Waters Meadow goals since signing in the summer, came just a fortnight after he was raced to Ipswich Hospital following heart palpitations and a sky-high heart rate.
“I try to (put it behind me) as much as I can. I’ve got a device on me to monitor how I can and any irregular heartbeats or anything and it’s looked at straight away,” said Town goal hero Bowman, whose treble lifted Steve Cotterill’s men out of the League One drop zone and up to 20th.
“Nothing’s happened since, touch wood, hopefully it’s a freak incident and won’t happen again.
“I get the odd palpitations every now and again that last a couple of minutes, but obviously nothing like what happened at Ipswich.
“That’s just what I’m used to, the irregular heartbeat, but not as extreme as that.
“It happened five or 10 minutes in and I just thought it was what usually happens, the palpitations and irregular heartbeat.
“But it just kept pounding and pounding and it wouldn’t go away, and then I started feeling a little bit dizzy, so I thought it was best to come off.”
Former Exeter man Bowman’s name echoed around the Meadow during and after full-time, when he was also handed the match ball by Town assistant Aaron Wilbraham. The ball was signed by his Town team-mates.
He thumped in a towering sixth-minute header before calmly slotting in his side’s crucial second and third goals to round off neat moves in Town’s best attacking display of the season.
Bowman was joined on the scoresheet by Luke Leahy, who added a late fourth to cap off a fine display against 10-man Cambridge, who had levelled around the hour, 10 minutes after which the visiting U’s had Adam May sent off for a dangerous challenge on Josh Daniels at 1-1 – and Town made them pay.
Daniel Udoh put and Shaun Whalley were among the Shrews men who also starred in the rout, but it was Bowman’s day, he added: “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard them properly sing it here, so that’s another positive for me.
“Hopefully they are singing my name more times.
“Of course (it helps you settle), as a striker you go on a run where you don’t score and you feel like people don’t rate me, or they are thinking this and that.
“But obviously when you score three in one game, you know people are going to think he can score goals, and that’s what I want to do.
“Hopefully me and Dan have earned the right to start next week.”
Cotterill said: “Ryan is a fantastic lad, part of the team, squad, I think they are starting to get tighter from pre-season. Nobody wanted to leave Ipswich on the bus while we didn’t know how Ryan was, because one of their team-mates was in danger.”
“Thankfully Ipswich were brilliant and football changes from week to week, we’re really pleased Ryan is OK. It’s quite a nice story and how it’s how evolved over the last couple of weeks for him.”
