JAMIE LOWERY’S JOURNEY to the 1986 World Cup with Canada started in the logging town of Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

Along the way he would camp out in tents for training camps, hitchhike his way home from games, and when the time came to represent his country on the biggest stage of all he had already dropped out of college to live his dream.

“You know, I think it’s pretty funny that I never made a cent and played for Canada the World Cup,” Lowery says.

“How cool is that?”

Lowery was the amateur midfielder in the squad who survived a brutal cull by the same manager, Tony Waiters, two years previously when the tenacious midfielder was on the cusp of representing Canada at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

He was never going to let that set-back keep him down.

Jamie Lowery (left) with Hungary star Lajos Detari

Lowery, despite the surname, is not of Irish descent. His mother was keen on genealogy before her death. The mining town of Ashington in England’s north-east is what moulded Lowery before the family emigrated.

The Charlton brothers, Jack and Bobby, were revered figures in their household.

“I heard stories all the time, from my grandpa and my papa.”

In the early 1980s, before he would earn a spot in Canada’s squad, Lowery was a cornerstone of one of the country’s most celebrated clubs, Vic West. It was there he faced the ire of Vancouver Whitecaps’ player-manager Johnny Giles, while also earning the respect of Peter Lorimer in a challenge match.

“I’m not going to blow smoke up my ass, but I was having a blinder. I was on top of my game. Johnny Giles was so pissed off. He went and suited up at half-time. He wasn’t match fit.

“He was in midfield and I don’t know what he expected, but I was also a player that was tough in the tackle. I didn’t show any emotion when I got whacked, and it used to piss people off.

“I would just get up, start playing. So he came out and whacked me because he was so pissed off at his team. And I didn’t really care. So that made him even more mad. Peter Lorimer did give me a whack after I shielded the ball out of play and when I said ‘eh, what the fuck was that for’, he told me he’d get me the first beer after the match.”

The official team list from the game with France, Lowery's name is at the bottom.

Lowery played the game to enjoy it. “I think it was an addiction to work as hard as I could on a field and never give up.”

There was also a toughness underpinning it all. As a teenager he would spend summers camping almost four hours away in Vancouver so he could play for the provincial British Columbia team.

“I wasn’t the only one, other guys would do the same, we had to do it.”

There would be times when he would need to hitchhike there and back, a level of dedication that would serve him well in one respect but not in another.

“I missed so much school,” he explains.

Lowery went to university to become a teacher and in 1982 and represented Canada at the Student Games in Mexico. He would return four years later, but the process would be far from straightforward.

First he was dumped before the Olympics and in the build up to the 1986 World Cup he found himself continually pulled away from studies to fill gaps left by the professional players who would not be released by their clubs.

Lowery played against Uruguay, Paraguay, Wales and England, among others, in the months before Mexico and had already dropped out of school so he could commit. As the tournament neared he remained in contention.

The France and Soviet Union jerseys Jamie Lowery swapped at the 1986 World Cup.

“Sometimes the pros couldn’t make it. So, you know, then we’d have another training camp and I went, I didn’t get cut again. I was actually laughing. You know, I can tell you I’m a straight shooter, and you’re going to laugh at me.

“The very last training camp I didn’t get cut, so I told my Dad: ‘Hey, Papa, you’re not going to believe this. I didn’t get cut. I’m going to Mexico.”

Lowery had his moment to shine as a second-half substitute against France in Canada’s opening game.

His instructions from manager Tony Waiters were simple. “Don’t let [Michel] Platini destroy us.”

The French did pilfer a late 1-0 win and defeats to Hungary and the Soviet Union followed. Canada’s tournament was over in a flash but the work to even be there is what fills Lowery with as much pride.

He went to the Qatar World Cup in 2022 with his daughter and revelled in that experience. At one of Fifa’s museums, they also have the white jersey of France defender William Ayache on display.

“That’s because I have the blue one at home hanging up,” Lowery smiles, sending through a photograph of the shirt hanging up on a local dry cleaning company’s hanger.

He also secured the shirt of Soviet Union star Oleg Blokhin despite some of his teammates fearing they didn’t want to swap.

“Forgive the language but they were like ‘the commie bastards’, but we straightened it all out.”

With his daugher at the 2022 World Cup.

Lowery remains tight with many of that Canada squad 40 years on, visiting China, Singapore and Switzerland for tours, although there is some sadness that the country’s FA didn’t arrange for a celebration ahead of tonight’s opener with Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Lowery has experienced enough in his life not to feel bitter, and after 25 years as a bus driver for his local community he is now able to savour retirement as a trailblazer who might not have conquered the world but at least left his mark on it.

“My daughter she kind of respects it when I say, you know, I’m just your average everyday guy that got to play in the World Cup. That’s how I look at it.”