Greg’s career is reborn in the USA
Sometimes you need to fall in love with football all over again.
When Greg Hurst walked through the St Johnstone entrance five years ago, it was all he had ever wanted in the game.
This was a young player tipped for the top and, while still to prove himself at senior level, his arrival brought a sense of excitement.
After all, the striker’s journey from Stirling Albion to Mcdiarmid Park swung via one of the English Premier League’s biggest clubs.
On the adjacent training pitch, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas and Ross Barkley were pinging balls into the back of the net.
And at lunchtime, he would plate up a healthily-sized portion and take a seat next to former Celt Aiden Mcgeady.
He had made a couple of substiture appearances for the Binos at the end of the 2014-15 season and was working in the butchers in Dunblane, just about to leave school.
“I was in my last year and I remember getting a phone call at work one afternoon,” said Greg. “Straight away I thought I had done something wrong.
“On my break I phoned the guy back and he told me he was with a sporting agency. He had been watching my games at Stirling Albion and wanted to take me to the next level.”
He added: “I thought it would hopefully be a Scottish Championship or Premiership team youth academy and he came and chatted to my family.
“Two days later he phoned me and said I had a trial at Everton.”
Greg said he ran down the stairs to tell his dad.
He went on: “We didn’t believe it but in May I went down and I was with the under-18s because the under-21s were away.
“I went on to train with them and the first team was on the pitch next to us - Lukaku, Mirallas and Barkley were all there.
“On my last day I was sitting having lunch with Mcgeady. I was sitting there for 20 minutes thinking: ‘This is insane.’
“David Unsworth was the coach at the time and the U21s had players like Tom Davies and Kieran Dowell.”
Greg was asked to go on a tour of Ireland and he was asked me to go with them.
“I didn’t expect that, I didn’t even have my passport. My dad had to drive down to Liverpool, hand me my passport and then head home just so I could get on the ferry.
“We took the first team bus across I’d gone from playing part-time with Stirling Albion to sitting on Everton’s first team bus.
“It was a big shock and it went well but at the end the coach pulled me in and said some days I was brilliant and others I didn’t do as much.
“They actually gave me a lot of references for coming back up and I then got the chance to go on trial at St Johnstone.”
Greg would impress then-manager Tommy Wright, a deal was done and quickly he was in training among a first team squad still riding the crest of a Scottish Cup-winning wave.
Wright himself had, at the time, said: “When we brought him in on trial, we knew right away we would want to sign him.”
He made his debut as a replacement at Pittodrie with the Saints 5-1 against Aberdeen.
“The match was won,” he reminisced. “But I was still a bag of nerves.”
Greg said the first year and a half was probably the most enjoyable for him but as the years went on, he struggled a bit for consistency.
“I was in and out of the squad. Towards the end I fell out of love with football a little bit.
“I remember the chat with the gaffer and, because of the players we had at the time, it wasn’t looking likely I was going to play much.
“We both agreed that, at my age, I had to go and start playing somewhere.
“I’d only been playing four years and was thinking: ‘Is it worth feeling like this and going into training and not enjoying it anymore?’”
In that four years were loan spells at Berwick Rangers, East Fife and Forfar Athletic. But it was a permanent switch to Stenhousemuir last year which has helped open up a unique chapter.
Still only 23, Greg is now successfully plying his trade in the USL League One, the third division of football in America. He has been based in Tennessee and scoring goals for the Chattanooga Red Wolves.
“I went part-time to just get playing again and went to Stenhousemuir,” he said. “I absolutely loved it there.
“Colin Mcmenamin was the coach at the time and I fell back in love with playing again. I realised I still wanted to play football.
“Nicki Paterson, who was with Stenhousemuir, had spent time in the US and one of his mates was the assistant at Chattanooga last year.
“There’s a perception of US football and people don’t think the standard is good. But it’s getting better and there are opportunities.
“Later on, when you phase into coaching, it’s a great place to be. I weighed up all the options.
“I didn’t want to wake up when I was 35 and think what might have been if I’d gone over to America.
“It wasn’t an easy conversation with my parents but I needed to try something different.”
The Covid-19-impacted season has recently come to an end and Greg can reflect on netting eight goals in 15 games.
He is on a mission to reach the highest level but, for the determined forward, there is no feeling of trying to show previous clubs what they have missed.
“It’s not to show them what they are missing, I’m not saying that at all,” he emphasised. “It’s about proving to yourself.
“I’m looking to stay here for a long time yet and see where it can go.
“I’ve had a bit of interest coming off the back of the season, maybe to go to the USL Championship. The goal is to play in the MLS.”