Flowers was born in Kenilworth and began his career with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1984. He quickly broke into the first team, becoming their regular goalkeeper by his 18th birthday, but his breakthrough came at the bleakest time in the club's history, as the two seasons he spent there both ended in relegation to the Third Division and in 1985–86 to the Fourth. After Wolves fell into the Fourth Division to complete a hat-trick of successive relegations, they had to sell Flowers as part of the effort to avoid bankruptcy.
Southampton
He joined First Division club Southampton for £70,000 in June 1986. He was understudy to Peter Shilton in 1986–87, but managed nine league appearances and also played a further nine games on loan to Swindon Town in the Third Division. He made another nine league appearances in 1987–88 and returned to Swindon for a five-match loan spell, before becoming Southampton's regular goalkeeper in the 1989–90 season. Within a couple of years of becoming Southampton's first choice goalkeeper, Flowers was regarded as one of the best goalkeepers in the English league and inevitable rumours of a transfer to a bigger club began.
Blackburn Rovers
He finally left Southampton on 4 November 1993 when a £2.4million move to Blackburn Rovers made him the most expensive goalkeeper in Britain. His excellent goalkeeping was not quite enough to win Blackburn the Premier League title that season, but they did finish second to Manchester United, and went one better the following year when they won their first top division title since 1914. He remained at Ewood Park for another four seasons before Blackburn were relegated in 1999.
Leicester City
He was transferred to Leicester City, where he collected a Football League Cup winner's medal in his first season. In August 2002 he went on loan to Manchester City to provide cover for Carlo Nash after injuries to Peter Schmeichel and Nicky Weaver. He stayed with Leicester for one season after their relegation to Division One two years later before retiring as a player. His final appearance for Leicester City was against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux in May 2003. It was the final game of the season, and with Leicester 1–0 down, Flowers came on as a late substitute for Ian Walker. Leicester were awarded a late penalty, and despite shouts from the travelling Leicester fans for Flowers to take the penalty, and Flowers himself signalling to the bench, Micky Adams ignored the fans, and allowed Trevor Benjamin to take it, who scored.
International career
Flowers won 11 caps with England between 1993 and 1998. He was in the squads for both Euro 96 in England and the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. He retired following the 2002–03 season.
Coaching and management
Following a spell as goalkeeper coach for both Leicester City and Manchester City, on 19 February 2007 he was appointed as assistant manager to Iain Dowie at Coventry City. Flowers left Coventry on 11 February 2008 after Dowie was sacked, before joining him again at Queens Park Rangers. He left the assistant manager's role at QPR as well after Dowie was sacked again. In February 2010, he was appointed part-time goalkeeper coach at Northampton Town, as well as mentoring Dean Coleman and Yasbir Singh at Kidderminster Harriers. On 17 March 2010, he re-joined Dowie when he was appointed as assistant manager at Premiership club, Hull City. On 14 October he was appointed manager of Conference North team Stafford Rangers. However, Flowers resigned on 11 January 2011 after just nine games in charge. On 22 November 2011, Flowers become manager of his second club, this time being appointed caretaker manager of Northampton Town on 22 November 2011. He only managed the club for one game, losing 4–1 to Plymouth Argyle, before Aidy Boothroyd became permanent manager at the club, although Flowers remained as goalkeeping coach. When Boothroyd was sacked by Northampton in January 2014, Flowers continued on the coaching staff under caretaker boss Andy King, but he left the club on 30 January 2014 following the appointment earlier that week of Chris Wilder as the new manager of Northampton Town. On 6 March 2014 he was appointed first-team coach at Kidderminster Harriers. In July 2014, Flowers started working as a goalkeeper coach at Nottingham Forest under his former teammate, Nottingham Forest manager Stuart Pearce. Flowers left Forest following the dismissal of Pearce in February 2015. On 11 September 2015, it was reported that Flowers had replaced Gary Whild as manager of Kidderminster Harriers, but he left the club within a fortnight to be replaced by Dave Hockaday. On 20 June 2018, he returned to management with Solihull Moors replacing Mark Yates, who had joined newly promoted Football League side Macclesfield Town. He left Solihull Moors by mutual consent on 28 January 2020.
