Stephen Lowry celebrates special Coleraine milestone

The dramatic win in Slovenia marked the experienced midfielder’s 250th game for the Bannsiders, and Lowry marked it with an inspirational performance at the heart of the midfield.

It was slightly better than his first game for the club at Mourneview Park a decade earlier.

“I remember my first appearance, it was away to Glenavon, David Platt was the manager,” Lowry recalled.

“Looking back now I was a scrawny right winger. I didn’t have a good game that day, I probably thought I would never see 250 appearances!

“When you’re a young player you don’t really think about it.

“For me personally it’s a nice milestone, I’m proud to have done it, and it was great to do it in a European game away in Slovenia, as you don’t get those sort of opportunities too often.

“I feel good at the minute, my body feels good, 250 games is a lot when you think of it.

“To do that for Coleraine is fantastic. I love playing for the club.”

Lowry is in his second spell at the Showgrounds after four years away at Linfield.

But there was a big reason why he made the decision to return to the club as he explained.

“When I left it felt like the right time, I wanted to go and challenge myself,” he said.

“I am happy at how things panned out there, but I’m delighted to be back.

“Coleraine is close to home, I’ve loved playing for the club.

“The main decision about coming back was the manager and the club being in a really good position to challenge for trophies.

“The manager is someone I really enjoy working with, we get on well with each other, and I like his style of management.

“You get what you see with him, he’s a very fair manager. He’s bang on the money with his tactics and the way he handles his players.

“The trip away to Slovenia was very relaxed, like Oran is, but at the same time there’s discipline as the players know the boundaries.

“We have gone from strength to strength, we had a good season last year and we want to build on it.

“We want to continue to challenge for honours.”

Lowry has played a number of games in Europe now and he knows how important that experience is for a team.

“You can’t buy this sort of experience, it brings all the players together,” he said.

“It’s different to the likes of a pre-season trip away because of the competitive element, but there’s other distractions like bedding new players in, eating together and spending time together, which is something we don’t do as semi-professional players.

“We’ve had a couple of new signings who have bedded in well, and it’s fantastic to come to new countries which you maybe wouldn’t normally go to.

“The club has really looked after us well throughout the whole lockdown period, and it was first class throughout the entire trip.

“We were representing the town and the whole of the north coast area.

“Coleraine is a very community orientated club and we wanted to make everyone proud.”

A mouthwatering tie with Motherwell at The Showgrounds is coming up next week, but Lowry has his sights set on more silverware as well.

With the league set to recommence next month he wants to build on the success the club tasted last season.

“There’s a core group of players at the club and we really do have a good bond,” he said.

“There’s plenty of banter but it’s all in good spirits.

“There’s a good foundation there for success.

I know other clubs will be in a good position too, but from my personal point of view I think Coleraine are in good shape with the squad they have.

“There’s a good mix of players and hopefully there’s good things ahead for them.

“My hopes for the season is that we can get things back up and running, we can get the fans back in and we can get back to normal.

“We want to try and do better than last season. To finish second is a great achievement for Coleraine. but we want to win the league.

“We also won the League Cup and got to the semi-final of the Irish Cup so if we can do better than that we’ll be doing well,” added the Coleraine midfielder.

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