Just how good were/was/is/are (Wolves Edition)

[Parkins left foot]

Hennessey might have been tall, but had no physicality - not sure that any decent forward was scared with him coming to claim a cross anyway

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

5. Andy Gray

Andrew Mullen Gray (born 30 November 1955) is a Scottish retired footballer who played for several clubs in Scotland and England, while also representing his country. He was the lead football pundit for Sky Sports until his dismissal in January 2011, following multiple allegations of sexism. Gray, along with former Sky Sports anchor Richard Keys, then signed for talkSPORT in February 2011. They now both work for beIN Sports in Doha, Qatar.

Born in Glasgow and with a mother from the Isle of Lewis, Gray started his professional career as a player with Dundee United, where he scored 46 goals in 62 appearances.

In October 1975, at the age of 19, he moved south to Aston Villa (newly promoted to the First Division) for £110,000 and was joint winner of England's golden boot with Arsenal's Malcolm Macdonald in 1976–77. His 29 goals helped Villa to a fourth-place finish and victory in the League Cup, and earned him the PFA Young Player of the Year and PFA Players' Player of the Year awards, a double matched by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009 and Gareth Bale in 2013. At the time he was the youngest player to earn the Players' Player of the Year award, and the first player to win more than one of the official three player of the year awards in the same season.

Gray moved to Villa's local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 1979, for an English record transfer fee of £1.49m. After scoring the winning goal for Wolves in the 1980 League Cup final, he remained with the club through their relegation in 1982 (despite interest from Manchester United) and promotion a year later.

Gray moved to Everton in November 1983 for £250,000. He spent two seasons with the Merseyside club, winning the FA Cup in May 1984. Gray scored in the final against Watford in controversial fashion by heading the ball out of the Watford's goalkeeper's hands. A year later, he won the League Championship and European Cup Winners' Cup, also scoring in the final of the latter. He also reached another FA Cup final, but this time he was on the losing side as Everton were defeated by Manchester United. Then came the arrival of England striker Gary Lineker from Leicester City in the 1985 close season. Despite angry petitions from Everton fans wanting to keep Gray at Goodison Park, he left the club on 10 July 1985, returning to Aston Villa in a £150,000 deal.

Despite starting the decade on a high as league champions in 1981 and European Cup winners in 1982, Villa had now declined to mid table mediocrity and the return of Gray was unable to turn things around as his arrival at Everton had done. He scored five goals from 35 league games in 1985–86 as Villa narrowly avoided relegation to the Second Division, and the following season he failed to score a single goal from 19 league games as Villa fell into the Second Division. He began the 1987–88 season still with Villa, but was transferred to their local rivals West Bromwich Albion in September 1987 having not featured in a first team game for Villa that season. His spell at Albion lasted less than a year, and was uneventful as they narrowly avoided relegation from the Second Division.

In mid-1988, he joined Rangers. He spent one season at Ibrox, helping them win the Scottish Premier Division title – the first of nine successive titles they would win. He dropped into non-league football with Football Conference club Cheltenham Town before retiring in 1990.

 

[Johnny75]

Don't remember Gray playing for Wolves but do for Everton where he was a very talented and old fadhioned centre forward.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I can remember the league cup final as a bit of a pup, but my main memory of Gray was him utterly bullying Steve Sherwood in the Watford goal for Everton in the 1984 FA Cup final. A decent forward for sure. Not entirely convinced we got full value for what we paid but he stuck a trophy in the cabinet so ta for that.

As a person, sexist pig.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

As a person, sexist pig.

I'm not going to go into this too much in this thread (neither the time nor the place, plus eventually I hope we'll get people who actually saw him play for us at length :icon_lol: ) but you can see that without excusing him, Gray is a product of his environment. Been around 70s/80s dressing rooms all his life before he went into TV. It's not right, he should have learned, they're shocking views but you can see how it's borne out.

Whereas Keys has no such excuse and is simply an absolute fucking cunt. I'll dish the dirt on him properly one day, the Qatarangutan wanker.

 

[Tony Towner]

I do remember Gray but was a kid at the time. Obviously he's synonymous with 1980, but in the main played in struggling sides. In his 4 years he was relegated once and was on his way to another when he left, although I don't blame him for either. I guess he could have jumped ship after the first one but player power wasn't what it is so I'm not sure if he stayed by choice or compulsion. One thing I have noticed about him is Ive not heard him speak about Wolves with any warmth in the way that he does Villa, Rangers or Everton.

He played and scored in my first Wolves game away at Albion in August 1980 and I bought a necklace like this on holiday in homage

 

[Doctor Doog]

March 15th 1980, a few days before my 20th birthday, Dave Needham chested the ball past Peter Shilton, and Gray put the ball into the empty net to win us a major trophy. As good as Neves, Jimenenez etc are, none of them have done that yet. Only once in the following 40 years have I been happier following Wolves. So, despite the fact that he turned out to be a prick later on, he's one of my all time favourites.

As others have said he was an old fashioned centre forward, nothing more nothing less. He wasn't the tallest, but hung in the air, which meant he probably scored goals others wouldn't. Towards the end of his career with us, when it had all gone downhill after Barnwell's car crash, he fancied himself as something more and would drop deep and try to be a ball paying midfielder. Good value for money though, effectively being signed for Steve Daley plus a few thousand quid. He was probably better for both Everton and Villa overall than he was for us.

 

[Newbridge Wolf]

Before my time, but like TT said he never seems to speak with any fondness of his time with us.

I had the dubious please of working with one of his sons, he's a mad keen Villa fan, I never really got on with him.

 

[darlowolf64]

Did you put the second and third video in to show how poor he actually was for Wolves and as a presenter? :icon_lol:

Second video, great header for the goal but he couldn't trap a bag of cement

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Nah, just picked ones that weren't too long :icon_lol:

There's one on YouTube of us playing City but it's over half an hour long and no-one will watch it. Plus I have no idea if he's any good in it.

Although everyone should watch the long (well, 25 mins or whatever) video of Netherlands 1974 on the other thread.

I can't comment as he's way before my time and I only vaguely remember him for Rangers.

He was good on Sky for a time. Was a parody of himself by the end though even ignoring the gross misconduct, much like Hansen he got lazy.

 

[sycophantia]

Thought he was decent for us, played in a team which was on the decline for the whole of the time with us, thanks for the goal that won us our last major trophy. Tend to agree with folk saying he was better for Everton but suspect that was as much to do being in a better team than anything else

 

[nimrod]

i was just a kid in '79 so i'm recalling this with that in mind but i'd say Gray was much more than decent for us. the 79-80 season was epic with so many away wins, a top 6 finish and the league cup win. we had a decent side but i think his attitude more than anything helped to galvanise it. he was a hearts on sleeve player, went in where it hurt and as well as the goals he got he made a lot of chances for JR (who was undoubtedly a better finisher but nearer the end of his career). he got clattered a lot and in the games i saw over 3-4 years always gave his all for us out on the pitch. there were obvious injury issues and together with a declining squad we were struggling after that first season. even so i think he got the critical goal in 80/81 when we beat spurs late in the season when we were at risk of getting relegated. shame that didn't make any difference for us longer term but we've been there since.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

My Dad's major gripe (and I can only really go off what he and guys like you say) was that having received that money for Daley, we could have bought 5-6 good players at market value but we wanged it all on one instead.

 

[GLASGOWOLF]

The issue at the time, was the Car crash Barnwell had.
Him and Richie Barker would have put us right at the top if the tree they were that good.

That crash on the A38 destroyed us.
Barnwells ambition was out there to see, when we very nearly bought Platini, and Boniek.

We never really recovered, also this was Richard's, Kenny, Carr, etc coming to the end of their careers, I would have trusted Barnwell, to replace them with good players as it was we did not replace them until 1985.

Andy Gray was a good player, unfortunately Barnwells injury stopped Wolves from building a team round him.

We were truly fucked over with the sale to Everton, not as much as we were when the FA fucked us over with Clarke's transfer.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I dunno mate (and again this is me on the outside looking in). A 28 year old with injury problems - this in an era where players were routinely done in their early 30s at the top level as fitness methods were non-existent - at a club who were starting to wobble financially and were going down anyway. £250k was a lot of money in 1983 - I say this on the basis that £500k was definitely a lot of money when we bought Kevin Ashley in 1990!

He wasn't that flash for Everton. Likes to big himself up as a bit of a legend but didn't even play 50 league games.

 

[Tony Towner]

The issue at the time, was the Car crash Barnwell had.
Him and Richie Barker would have put us right at the top if the tree they were that good.

That crash on the A38 destroyed us.
Barnwells ambition was out there to see, when we very nearly bought Platini, and Boniek.

We never really recovered, also this was Richard's, Kenny, Carr, etc coming to the end of their careers, I would have trusted Barnwell, to replace them with good players as it was we did not replace them until 1985.

Andy Gray was a good player, unfortunately Barnwells injury stopped Wolves from building a team round him.

We were truly fucked over with the sale to Everton, not as much as we were when the FA fucked us over with Clarke's transfer.

Blues screwed us because we screwed them on Joe Gallagher

 

[nimrod]

W

I dunno mate (and again this is me on the outside looking in). A 28 year old with injury problems - this in an era where players were routinely done in their early 30s at the top level as fitness methods were non-existent - at a club who were starting to wobble financially and were going down anyway. £250k was a lot of money in 1983 - I say this on the basis that £500k was definitely a lot of money when we bought Kevin Ashley in 1990!

He wasn't that flash for Everton. Likes to big himself up as a bit of a legend but didn't even play 50 league games.

you can’t blame Gray for the transfer fee or the internal financial policies of the club though. and the fee was no doubt inflated cos of what we got for Daley. Gray was at least far better value than him. So it’s more a comment on bad governance.

Maybe we could have bought a few others instead but there’s no guarantee they’d have improved us. I’m sure we spent money on Dave Thomas around then (how much?) and he did next to nothing for us and was no spring chicken.

I think Gray gets a bit of a rough deal in hindsight a little cos of his later career.

 

[Keef]

Ive always thought the Steve Daley money went into building the new stand,before it was the Steve bull,or have I just imagined that for all these years?

 

[Tony Towner]

Ive always thought the Steve Daley money went into building the new stand,before it was the Steve bull,or have I just imagined that for all these years?

You have, the Daley money plus a bit more paid for Gray. The new stand was paid for by borrowing hence us going bust when interest rates sky rocketed

 

[Keef]

Ta for that,every day a school day