Dave Male could have had no idea that his decision to attend a match while he was on holiday in Spain two years ago would uncover a remarkable family link to one of English football’s brightest young prospects. The retired teacher was staying just down the road from the Pinatar Arena in Murcia and went along to watch England Under-16s in a friendly against Italy. “I was looking at the team sheet and that’s when the name Dowman hit me straight away,” Male recalls.
On the pitch that day was a 14-year-old Max Dowman, already standing out as England claimed a 2-1 victory. But for Male, it wasn’t just the performance that caught his attention. It was his name. Male, a keen genealogist, recognised it instantly from his own family history.
“My grandmother was born Maria Maud Dowman and she was the mother of George Male, who captained Arsenal and England. So it turns out he is distantly related to Max through his great, great, great, great grandfather William Dowman,” he says.
It is understood that Dowman’s family were not aware of the link until contacted by the Guardian but they are said to have welcomed the news.
The discovery adds another layer to Dowman’s already compelling rise. The 16-year-old, who became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history last month, comes from a footballing lineage that stretches back nearly a century.
George Male was a key figure in Arsenal’s dominant side of the 1930s, helping them win five league titles in eight seasons. Known for his consistency and leadership in defence, he remains one of the club’s historic figures and is pictured in two places outside the Emirates Stadium. Male went on to become a long-serving youth-team coach and then a scout at Arsenal after retiring, and is remembered as the man who discovered Charlie George, who was part of the famous Double-winning team of 1970-71.
“He was a very unassuming man. Very polite, very kind,” says Male of his uncle. “Originally he played for amateur side Clapton Orient and in one game they experimented with him as a centre-forward and he scored six goals in a 7-1 win against Wycombe. He was then rejected by West Ham after a trial before Arsenal signed him in 1929 and he went on to make more than 300 appearances. But he never scored a goal for Arsenal or England.”
That is an achievement that Dowman has already surpassed after his breathtaking solo strike in the 2-0 win over Everton, although it remains to be seen whether he will go on to enjoy the same success as his ancestor. Male was converted from left-half to right-back by Herbert Chapman and became a crucial part of the side that were crowned champions in three successive seasons before winning the FA Cup in 1936. He also earned 19 England caps before the second world war and – at the age of 36 in 1948 – became the first player to win six English top-flight titles.
Dowman, who scored a brilliant solo goal for England Under-19s this week in their 6-0 thrashing of Portugal, notched up another record by becoming Arsenal’s youngest FA Cup player during a 2–1 win over Mansfield at just 16 years and 66 days old last month. He is expected to feature against Southampton in the quarter-finals on Saturday. For Dave Male, uncovering the family link was relatively straightforward thanks to his passion for ancestry research.
“It didn’t take much because I subscribe to a couple of ancestry sites,” he says. “There are other people interested in that name and that family, so I was able to link up with them and build our own family tree.”
The trail leads back to the year 1800 when William Dowman, a shared ancestor from North Benfleet – just a short distance from where Max’s family is still based in Essex today – was born. George Male is the grandson of his son, Christopher Dowman, whose younger brother William Jr is the great, great, great grandfather of Max.
The Dowman name has long had ties to their local club, Billericay Town, where Max’s grandfather was a goalkeeper for the youth team and his father, Rob, also played for the club in his childhood. Rob Dowman joined the consortium that took over when the Essex businessman Glenn Tamplin departed in 2019 and played a major part in extending the youth section before leaving when he set up his own insurance company.
Max Dowman was spotted by the Arsenal scout Johnny Knight when he was playing for Billericay and spent five years in their youth team before joining the Hale End academy on a permanent basis. He was described as “something special” by Mikel Arteta and has even been tipped for a place in England’s World Cup squad.
For Male, who was a physical education teacher and played hockey at county level in Essex before a rugby injury forced him to stop, the discovery feels particularly special. “Sport seems to run in the family,” he says proudly. “It’s quite thrilling for us really.”
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