Jim and his younger brother Harry both played for South Melbourne in the Victorian Football Association, James from 1887.

[citation needed] Jim finally made it to Collingwood in 1897 in the inaugural year of the Victorian Football League.

The son of James Dowdall and Isabella McGowan, Jim was, like brother Harry, small of stature and lightly built.

[2] Newspaper reports of the time spell his name (and Harry's) variously as Dowdell/Dowdall.

This Australian rules football biography of a person born in the 1860s is a stub.