Scottish Premiership ace makes ‘shift the narrative’ claim as he opens up on Rangers social media ban
Motherwell star tackles ‘lazy’ claim as he recalls difficult Rangers spell.
Motherwell playmaker Alex Lowry has revealed he had to impose a social media ban on himself as a teenager to cope with the pressure of playing for Rangers.
Lowry, 22, began his career in the Rangers academy and was one of the club’s most highly rated youngsters, scoring on his debut in a 4-0 win over Stirling Albion in the Scottish Cup in January 2022 before making six more first-team appearances under manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
The following season, Lowry made a season-long loan move to Hearts, making a strong initial impression, before injury curtailed his campaign and left him in the Ibrox wilderness. After falling out of favour, he departed at the end of his contract in the summer of 2024. After spending 18 months in EFL League One with Wycombe Wanderers, he’s now back in Scotland with Motherwell, where he has five goal contributions in his first 12 appearances.
Recalling his early days at Ibrox, the playmaker said: “Coming through at Rangers, there’s a lot of scrutiny on you from a young age. Straight away, you’re kind of in the limelight in a way. There are a lot more eyes on you and what you do. For certain people, it can affect you. It maybe affected me at certain points in my life.”
Labelled as ‘lazy’ in some quarters during his younger years, the 23-year-old doesn’t agree with the assessment, but understands why a section of fans held that view. However, having now played over 70 senior games, Lowry revealed how his game has developed in recent years.
“I can see both sides of it,” he admits. “I’ve got a kind of relaxed posture and relaxed kind of demeanour, which can come across as lazy. Previous coaches I’ve worked under would say I definitely worked hard. I do my best day in and day out. As I’ve got older, I’ve put more of an emphasis on working harder and doing more stuff in the gym and being more professional, maybe.
“Maybe when I was a bit younger, I would rely on my ability which would get me out of trouble. Now it’s a case of head down and prove them wrong. Basically just try and shift the narrative to ‘no, he does work hard, he is a team player’. Loads of boys I came through with, we’d speak about it, and it’d become a bit of a joke. But you know it’s not a joke, you do think about it a lot and you start to doubt yourself. I’ve seen boys that it’s really affected and other boys it’s maybe not affected as much.
"But as I’ve got older, I’ve started to realise that as long as I’m happy, the club are happy, my family are happy, my girlfriend’s happy, my dog’s happy, whatever – that just makes my life 10 times easier. I try not to really look at it, I’ve come off social media and when I was younger, I’d maybe look at that stuff and get down about it. But nowadays, it’s just focus on my football, enjoy my football and live a quiet nice life.
“I’d probably be one of the ones it’s not affected too much because I don’t really read into it. But definitely for players coming through at certain clubs, it’s hard to come through it. It’s more of a mental game than it is a technical, tactical game which is really hard for young boys that are fresh into the game to deal with.”
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