SPLATTERED BY EGGS, BUT NOW I’VE CRACKED IT

GLENN MURRAY reckons he is in “a different universe” as the second-highest scorer in the Premier League after having eggs thrown at him as a non-league substitute.

The 35-year-old Brighton marksman chose Non-league Day to chart his inspirational rise from the bottom to the big time.

Murray told the BBC’S Football Focus: “The lowest point in my non-league career came when I was a teenage substitute for Workington Reds in a game at Blyth Spartans and some kids started throwing eggs at me and the other subs as we were warming up.

“My life now in the Premier League (below), where we get treated ridiculously well as players, feels like I am in a different universe. But I would not be here playing for Brighton at the age of 35 if it was not for those days I spent outside the Football League at the start of my career with Netherhall, Workington, Carlisle (top) and Barrow.

“They did not just act as a springboard for my career, they helped me rediscover my love for a game that I had become so sick of as a teenager that I almost quit for good.”

Murray’s winner at home to West Ham before the international break was his fifth top-flight goal of the season. It lifted him to joint-second in the scoring charts behind Chelsea’s Eden Hazard.

Yet Murray has never forgotten the life lessons that have since helped him to keep his feet on the ground.

He added: “When I left Carlisle for the first time at the age of 16 in 2000 I hated football. I had a really technically-minded coach but I wasn’t really much of a technical player so that was me out of the picture. I went from there to playing for a local side, Netherhall, on Saturday and Workington Reds Under-18s every Sunday, and started smashing goals in right, left and centre.”

Murray was able to get back into the professional game after a trial with Sunderland and returned to Carlisle.

“The manager told me he hadn’t made his mind up about me, and offered me the chance to go to play for Barrow in the National League North and earn some money. I did that and scored 10 goals in 10 games and gave him no option but to give me a contract. A few months later we had won promotion to the Football League – I had made it at last, and the rest is history.”