5'7" 10st.4lb.
b. Blackburn 20 May 1886
d. Lower Darwen 12 February 1959
 

Debut 23 September 1905 (19y 126d) Final Game 13 December 1919 (33y 207d)
CAREER: St Peter's '03;Nelson '04;Blackburn Rovers May'05-May'22
INTERNATIONALS  England  1 app
’10 v Ire.
FOOTBALL LEAGUE  1 app ’10 v IL.
HONOURS FL Ch (Blackburn Rovers) ’12,’14.
 

FL        280 apps
FAC       26 apps
CS            1 app
Total  307 apps  et 90m
LC       21 apps
War time
L          13 apps
SC         2 apps

Cowell was born in Bolton Street, the youngest of six children, but his father died soon after he was born. The family all worked in the cotton trade and Arthur started as a Jacquard machinist. Meanwhile Blackburn had long sought a partner for Bob Crompton but the arrival of Cowell appeared no more promising than the rest. Indeed the slender, artistic left back looked destined to be over powered by the aggressive nature of football at the time but he proved to be remarkably resilient. A powerful kicker and brave tackler he was also not averse to employing the deliberate foul as a tactic and was totally unaffected by nerves. He remained with the club with a role to develop talent and later became coach and then manager at Wrexham. He later had newsagents in Kirkham and then in Darwen when he returned to live in Lower Darwen in 1946. His cousin Kelly Houlker was another fine servant of the club and his son Arthur played for Nelson.