Grays Athletic – the ‘pub team’ made of superstars
WHEN A ‘PUB TEAM FROM ESSEX’WE RE SUDDENLY TURNED INTO GIANTS
The striker who played Champions League football in the Nou Camp. The winger who scored goals at four different Premier League clubs. And the forward who won back-to-back promotions into the Championship before getting a taste of the top flight at White Hart Lane.
No, it’s not Jim White’s text message history from agents on transfer deadline day but rather the Grays Athletic alumni of 2005/06.
As individuals, they were outrageously talented and furiously determined to get their opportunity in the pro game. As a collective, they didn’t so much emerge onto the Non-League scene as explode like a cork from a champagne bottle.
Grays tore the inaugural Conference South to shreds. They plundered 118 goals and finished on 98 points – a whopping 23 clear of their closest challengers.
“We had some players who were far too good for that level,” said full-back John Nutter. “Once we got that team together, no-one could live with us.
“Eight or nine of the XI were just kids. Ashley Bayes was 35 and Jamie Stuart was 30 but the rest of us were flying around, desperately trying to kick on with our careers.
“Mark Stimson had a really good eye for a player. He found young, hungry players and gave them the freedom to play. We had unbelievable energy and confidence.”
Unprecedented
Stimson had not long stopped playing and his nous for improving youngsters aligned the manager well with the Essex club’s vision to take the Conference by storm.
“I’d heard so much about him,” said midfielder Glenn Poole. “He wanted to sign me the year before and when they sold Mitchell Cole to Southend, it enabled me to move into the squad.
“He was very much switched on with the players and knew how we were thinking. He always had our best interests at heart.
“There were days at training when it would be freezing cold with ice on the pitch. We’d go out, do a 15-minute warm-up, come in and he’d be like ‘right boys, go home’ – little things like that. He was on the same wavelength as the players.
“It was a manager-player relationship where we knew we couldn’t cross the line but he wasn’t a screamer or a shouter. He was calm, confident, knowledgeable and that influenced all of us.”
Aaron McLean also joined Grays that summer having just missed out on promotion to the Football League with Aldershot.
He said: “I was surprised by how good the level was and the biggest challenge was forcing my way into the team. They scored goals freely and Dennis Oli, at that time, was the best player outside the League.
“It was almost a step backwards going to Grays and when I didn’t hit the ground running, I started to question myself.”
But the team had no such problems. After a draw at Burton on the opening day, they thrashed Gravesend & Northfleet 6-1 in their first home game. The tone had been set.
Poole said: “That’s one of the best games I’ve played in. We were playing a team that was fancied to be up there and we absolutely steam-rollered them. It was six but it could have been 12. Everything snowballed from there and our confidence was sky-high.”
It was November by the time Grays finally lost. During that 17-match unbeaten run, they beat Southport 4-1, Cambridge 5-3 and Scarborough 5-0. For a newly-promoted side, this was unprecedented stuff.
Nutter said: “We always felt we were going to score at least two goals. If we kept it to one, as a back four, we knew were going to win.
“But the boys up front – Aaron, Dennis and Michael Kightly – were hard-working and that’s a big reason why they got where they did. Michael and Aaron weren’t particularly gifted technically but their energy, desire and work-rate was incredible.”
McLean didn’t score until December but the goals flowed from elsewhere. Poole, Kightly, Oli and Jamie Slabber all reached double-figures in the league and Stimson’s men just kept winning.
“Going forward, we were a real force,” said McLean. “We would outscore most teams.
“I knew I needed to score goals and the manager was brilliant at helping me develop. His coaching sessions were very good, he was very detailed and and it wasn’t like being at a Non-League club.
“It felt like you were at a professional club because training was so good. That was perfect for me. I needed to improve my finishing, among other things, and they gave me the platform to do that.
“Mark had respect from everyone. We all trained properly, noone went through the motions. It showed on the pitch; everyone fought for the manager and he did the same for us.”
Poole was a regular starter but Stimson dropped him for the New Year derby at Canvey Island.
“He told me I was tired, needed
a rest and I wasn’t involved for about three weeks, not even on the bench,” Poole said. “My pride took a dent but looking back, he was right. When I got back in, I scored 17 goals in 23 games and it was arguably the best I played in my career.
“It was very exciting. I was an attack-minded player and I knew I was going to get chances to score. “We annihilated teams at times,” he added, recalling the Wednesday night Grays trekked to Scarborough and won 7-2. “I missed a sitter when it was still tight but instead of beating myself up, I laughed because I knew we were going to win the game.
“Teams tried to stop us doing what we were doing but no-one could.”
Poole scored two that night, McLean likewise and the burgeoning Kightly grabbed a hat-trick. McLean said: “We had an arrogance, as if to say ‘you might score two but we’re capable of scoring five or six. When one went in, the floodgates would open and you could see the confidence draining from the opposition. We took full advantage.”
Accrington went on to win the league but Grays outscored the champions by almost 20 goals. Several of their headline acts were being watched by League clubs but there was an unsung hero driving them on: captain Stuart Thurgood. “Stuey dictated, he ran the game for us,” said Nutter. “He was absolutely brilliant, the best midfielder by a mile in that league.” McLean said: “He was the glue that held our team together. He was a workhorse in the middle of the park, him and Jamie Stuart bullied teams physically but technically, he was as good as anyone.” Grays finished third and were paired with Halifax in the play-offs. But the pre-match favourites were 3-0 down before half-time at The Shay and needed two fabulous Oli strikes to keep them in the tie.
“We were disappointed we didn’t win the league,” admitted Poole. “It felt like we’d run out of steam at Halifax but coming back home at 3-2, we were so confident.”
McLean said: “We thought it was going to be our season. Given the performances we’d put in throughout the season, we believed we’d win the play-offs. It was a small, tight ground and we felt we had a chance.”
Martin Foster’s early strike for Halifax made the task doubly difficult but when Kightly and Nutter scored within a minute of each other, the Rec was rocking.
It was effectively ‘next goal wins’ but the visitors got it, Foster converting from the spot to shatter the Grays dream.
Poole said: “When Nutts scored to make it 4-4 on aggregate, I could only see one winner. Peter Atherton, their centre-half who played in the Premiership for Sheffield Wednesday, was on his knees as if to say ‘that’s it, we’re done’ but we gave away a needless penalty and that killed us.
“We just could not find a way back after that. We should have gone up that season – but that’s life.”
Nutter added: “If you divide that play-off into four quarters, they won the first dramatically but we won the next three. It just wasn’t quite enough. I still feel we were the best team that year.”
McLean admitted: “It was a long summer. We were devastated. We were the best team in that division and everyone expected us to get promoted. To replicate those performances the following season was always going to be difficult.”
Springboard
Even more so when Stimson left the club just days after lifting the FA Trophy at Upton Park to take charge of Stevenage. Nutter quickly followed his manager to Hertfordshire and things were never the same.
McLean said: “It was only a matter of time before the squad broke up. Me and Kights were getting itchy feet and wanted to move. Chester came in for Kights, Accrington came in for me and we wanted to go – but it didn’t happen.
“But the following season Peterborough bid £150,000 for me and it was a figure Grays couldn’t refuse.”
It was the end of an era but the memories remain.
Nutter said: “Even though I played in League One for Gillingham, that Grays side was possibly better. If we’d gone up that year, I think Stimmo would have stayed and it would have been interesting to see where we went from there. It was a great time and I probably don’t appreciate how special it was.”
McLean added: “It was the most important season of my career. I developed from a boy to a man. It was the springboard I needed to be able to play in the League.”
“They say there ain’t no friends in football,” Poole concluded. “But in this case, there definitely are. We all had the same goal, we had a bond and we’ve got that connection.
“Everyone went on and did well in their careers. I’m just gutted we didn’t do it together.”