The Brian Viner Interview: Cowan seeks to join the pacemakers

Unsung Briton who donned headphones in titanic Wimbledon match against Sampras wants more than 15 minutes of fame

As confident as he was in his own ability to break into the world's top 100 male tennis players, Barry Cowan did not start 2001 expecting to be invited to the BBC Sports Review of the Year.

But when the programme unfolds on Sunday evening, with Cowan in the audience all bibbed and tuckered up, the nation's hearts and minds (at any rate those hearts and minds that aren't following Cold Feet on ITV1) will be transported back to Wimbledon this summer where, for a few glorious moments, it seemed as if we might be in for the biggest tennis upset in living memory.

In a second-round match on 27 June, Cowan, a tall, big-serving left-hander ranked 265 in the world – who comes from Ormskirk, Lancashire, which as a breeding ground for great tennis players is not quite comparable with, say, Boca Raton, Florida – looked as if he just might knock out the seven-times Wimbledon champion, mighty Pete Sampras.

Regrettably, he didn't. And his place in posterity was slightly diminished when the Swiss upstart Roger Federer tactlessly disposed of Sampras in the fourth round. None the less, by storming back from two sets down to two-sets all, Barry Cowan became a Great British hero, lionised not only on the back pages of the national press, but on the front pages too. He was transformed into a celebrity literally overnight.

"I was asked to do a charity appearance with Nasty Nick," he says, when I ask him to elaborate on the magnitude of this sudden celebrity. Nasty Nick from Big Brother? "No, Nasty Nick from EastEnders. Nick Cotton." Ah. It's the first duty of a sports reporter, you see, to check the facts.

I went to Bolton to see Cowan play a men's doubles match in the indoor National Tennis Championships. He and his partner, Jamie Delgado, beat Arvind Parmar and Luke Milligan 7-6, 7-6. I counted 74 spectators, but a few of them are schoolboys who keep moving seats, so it could be that I counted them twice.

By stark contrast, on Court No 1 at Wimbledon, on The Day He Nearly Beat Sampras, there were nigh on 11,000 spectators present. It was by far the biggest crowd he had ever played in front of, although earlier in the year, in the Gold Flake Open in Madras, he had played a doubles match against an Indian pair before a somewhat partisan 6,000 crowd. "Whenever we served they were booing and shouting 'double fault'," he reports.

It wasn't like that on No 1 Court. Cowan had the vast majority of spectators on his side, and one of the greatest players in history across the net. And yet he coped admirably with the pressure, hunkering down between sets to listen to Gerry and the Pacemakers singing "You'll Never Walk Alone" on his headphones, and thrilling us all to bits.

Even the Evertonians among us were moved by his subsequent explanation that, as a devoted Liverpool fan, the sound of "You'll Never Walk Alone" sent inspiration coursing through his veins. When the unromantic tennis authorities later decreed that wearing headphones during a match was no longer permissible, just in case a player's coach was somehow feeding him instructions, we shared Cowan's indignation.

He is a quietly-spoken, immensely likeable fellow, who took in his lengthy stride his 15 minutes of considerable fame. He listened carefully to his boyhood hero John McEnroe, who met him for the first time just after the Sampras tussle, and with characteristic directness said "great match, but what matters is what you do from here". After all, it is not as though Cowan has youth on his side. At 27, he is the same age as Tim Henman. "McEnroe was right," he adds. "I don't want to be remembered for a match I lost."

Still, if that's what comes to pass, it will be better than not being remembered at all. I invite him to share his own memories of Wimbledon 2001.

"I had just split with my coach, Dave Sammel, and I had no confidence. I was really struggling. But Wimbledon had given me a wild card, and when the draw came out, people were saying that I could play Sampras in the second round.

"I had hit with him a couple of times before, which helped me. In fact I hit with him before his [1998] final against [Goran] Ivanisevic, because Ivanisevic is a left-hander like me, and David Felgate asked me if I wanted to knock with Sampras. But I still had to win my first-round match against Mark Hilton.

"When I won that, it felt like a breakthrough. I was so relaxed the night before the Sampras match, I just went to the driving range and hit golf balls. I didn't feel the nerves until I was just about to walk out on court.

"There's a really long tunnel from the dressing-room to Court One, it's about a five-minute walk, and when I got to the end I wanted to turn back, but I couldn't, partly because Sampras was right behind me.

"I'd had lots of advice. Dave Sammel told me that on the big points he'd go down the middle, but Brent Larkham, Wayne Arthurs' coach, said that on the big points he'd go wide. And Tim had just said 'if you serve well you've got a chance'.

"Anyway, in the first two sets I was timing the ball unbelievably, although serving horrendously. I thought 'just hang in there', and I won a great tie-break in the third, then in the fourth I was really in the zone. I was so composed mentally even after the fourth."

In the event, Cowan lost 3-6, 2-6, 7-6, 6-4, 3-6, but still walked away with the biggest cheque of his career, for £12,000. Moreover, his performance did wonders for the reputations of Gerry and the Pacemakers, not to mention a sports masseuse turned psychologist, Gloria Budd. "Gloria helped me through an unbelievable transformation," he says. "I don't want to go into too much detail, but basically we looked a lot at my past, and found reasons why I did certain things on court." For instance, that he was inclined to squander match-winning opportunities because he was once bullied in the playground? He disarms my cynicism with a broad smile. "She just helped me get rid of a lot of negative thoughts. She got me believing in myself, and worked on different images and techniques.

"That's why I brought on the headphones. I'd used that music in the past, but never on court. But in Nottingham, just before Wimbledon, I listened to it twice while my opponents went to the toilet, and both times I came out firing."

After the match, Gerry Marsden left a congratulatory message on his mobile phone. And then he was invited to join the players of his beloved Liverpool for pre-season training.

"I had heard a while ago that Patrice Hagelauer [the Lawn Tennis Association's French performance director] was a good friend of Gérard Houllier's, so I asked Patrice if he could introduce me, and Patrice phoned him there and then. I was a guest of Houllier's at the Liverpool v Aston Villa game last September, and to repay the favour I invited Houllier to Wimbledon, but he was on holiday. I was his guest again [when the Liverpool manager was taken ill] at the Leeds game, unfortunately."

He is, he says, a "passionate, fanatical" follower of Liverpool. "We used to have four season tickets at Anfield, but then we got rid of two and after Hillsborough my dad lost interest. I had two tickets for the Leppings Lane end that day, but I had to play tennis. A friend of ours was there and his son was in the Leppings Lane end, and afterwards he couldn't find his son, so he was told to check the bodies at the back of the stand. Luckily, he was OK."

As much as Cowan loves tennis, the main disadvantage of his schedule is that it robs him of the opportunity to follow Liverpool home and away, he says.

In August, as the football season kicked off, he was half-way up a mountain in Brazil, winning his first tournament on the Challenger tour. His winning cheque was for $3,600 (£2,590), scarcely enough to cover his air fare to Brazil and thence to New York, where he lost in the second round of the US Open qualifying event.

For players outside the top 100 – and Cowan is currently ranked 215 – life as a touring tennis professional is unremittingly tough, the financial rewards mediocre to say the least.

"My career earnings are about $260,000," he says. "But it's only in the last couple of years that I've made a good living." This autumn he finally moved out of his parents' home and into a flat in Didsbury, Manchester, which he shares with his girlfriend. He drives a Ford Fiesta. The contrasts with not only Sampras, but also Henman, could hardly be more marked.

"I make about £60,000 a year," he adds, "but my expenses are about £25,000, and I have no sponsorship. The LTA have been unbelievable to me, because giving me wild cards for Wimbledon helps me to keep going. A cheque for £12,000 means a lot if you're heading off to play somewhere with costs of £2,000, and playing really well to win £500, when you are already £5,000 in debt. But I've always been one for investing in my career."

He started playing tennis at the age of six, and at under-14s level was ranked No 2 in England. "But in Britain you have a false idea of the world game," he says. "I went to my first overseas tournament at the age of 12. It was in Holland. I went with Tim Henman, and lost in the first round."

At 14, however, he committed himself to a tennis future. With his parents' blessing he left home, joined the LTA course at Bisham Abbey, and enrolled at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, "where I struggled from day one".

No, his goal was not to win Wimbledon. "I've always been realistic, and I've always been good at reassessing my goals. At that time I wanted to represent my country [which he finally did this year, albeit in a dead-rubber match which he lost, in the Davis Cup tie in Ecuador]. My current goal is to get into the top 100."

He has made substantial progress in that direction since 1993, when he was stuck on the satellite tour playing tournaments in Bangladesh. "I remember staying in a motel in a small village, and standing in the lobby when this rat went running through the reception, and nobody batted an eyelid." Probably not a scenario Sampras has ever encountered, I venture. "Probably not," he says.