A young Welshman who came through the Spurs youth set-up, Mark struggled to displace the big money signings ahead of him in the left back slot and moved on to have a good career as a player and a coach.
An attacking full back, Bowen had pace and a good eye for goal and when he played for Tottenham, albeit on only 17 occasions, he loved to get forward. Unfortunately, he was playing at a time when Spurs had a spell of success and he only got games when injury hit others. As time went on, his frustration ended with him being transferred to Norwich City in search of first team football. And he got just what he wanted, playing nearly 400 times in nine years at Carrow Road and earning a number of Welsh caps at the same time.
He was a key player in the club's promotion to the old First Division and then later back to the Premiership, after relegation. He played every game as the Canaries finished third in the 1992-93 Premier League season and was a member of the Norwich team that took the UEFA Cup by storm, beating Bayern Munich in the Olympic stadium before eventually losing out to Internazionale.
Bowen eventually left to join West Ham United, but it didn't really work out there and quickly moved abroad to Japan, under the eye of the manager, an ex-Spurs team-mate, Ossie Ardiles before coming back to play in South London for Charlton Athletic, where he had two good years culminating in promotion to the Premier League through the play-off victory in 1998 against Sunderland on penalties. Mark converted one of the spot-kicks successfully. After that there were a few games for Wigan Athletic and one for Reading as his playing career came to an end.
Mark soon realised that he could put his experience to good use and he gained his coaching badges getting some practical application as Mark Hughes' assistant with Wales. He first took up a permanent coaching place under Steve Bruce at Crystal Palace and moved with him to Birmingham City in 2002 and stayed there until 2004, having guided the club to the Premier League, ironically beating Norwich City in the play off final. In autumn 2004, Bowen joined up with Hughes again, as his assistant manager at Blackburn Rovers and in the summer of 2008, followed him to Eastlands, where he took over at Manchester City, but in December 2009 Roberto Mancini replaced Hughes and Bowen left the club at the same time.
Hughes and Bowen's next port of call was Fulham in August 2010, until the manager and his staff left in June 2011, but January 2012 saw Hughes take up the manager's position at QPR and Bowen joined the Rs too. Things looked good for the pairing, with lots of money spent on big name players, but they failed to gel and with QPR nailed near the foot of the table for a long period of the first half of the season, Hughes was dismissed and his back-room staff left with him.
Stoke City was the next stop for Hughes and Bowen, as they moved in to take over from Tony Pulis at the Britannia Stadium in June 2013.
Married to Karen and has a daughter Daniella.