NEW Cherries signing Jamal Lowe previously revealed how he quit all his jobs to make it as a professional footballer.

The 27-year-old today secured a three-year contract at Vitality Stadium, having sealed a £1.5million move from Swansea to join Scott Parker’s side.

But Lowe’s journey could have been so different.

He worked as a football coach and a PE teacher while playing in non-league – after leaving Barnet and Queen’s Park Rangers when he was a youngster.

Explaining his journey to the Swansea website last year, Harrow-born Lowe said: “I started teaching because the money I was getting in non-league was not really enough to live on.

“I was only 19, so I didn’t have huge bills to pay, it was only really my phone, my car and petrol.

“The football money covered it at a push, but there was nothing left for anything else. I needed something else, so I got a job as a football coach after school at Crowne Hill School.

“It went so well that they invited me to be their main PE teacher. I had to do a few courses to get myself qualified. Every term the sport would change, so I had to be qualified in cricket, rugby, tennis.

“The curriculum guides you, I had to do more than football. But it was a good experience, it showed me the real world outside the football bubble. It was a reality check for me. If football does not work, this could be me until I am 65.

“I did enjoy it, particularly at the start. It was new, I enjoyed helping the children improve. But, over time, it sunk in that I just wanted football so badly.

“It came to a point where I even took another job coaching the Met Police under-16s and it clashed with my football training. Yet I knew I could not afford to miss work.

“That was when I decided if I really wanted to be a footballer, I would have to bite the bullet.”

He added: “I quit all my jobs. I just knew that if I had done that job until I was 65 or whenever, I would have looked back at the end of it and been disappointed with myself for not having made that extra effort to do what I really wanted to do, which was play football.

“I vowed I would stick with it as long as it took. So, when I was not training with Hampton & Richmond Borough, I would either be working out in the gym, or I would take a bag of footballs to a park and work there.

“I’d be running, doing weights, whatever I needed to do until I got a chance somewhere. I did that for four months until Portsmouth came in for me and I signed on for them.”

Having played 119 times and scored 29 goals for Pompey, Lowe then moved to Wigan Athletic before joining the Swans in 2020.

He played 58 times in all competitions for the Welsh outfit, scoring 14 goals and becoming a full Jamaica international.