THECITYGROUND ORROCKCITY?

WHICHCAMEFIRSTFORY OU: FOOTBALLORMUSIC? HOWDIDYOUMANAGETOBECREDIBLE INTHEMUSICINDUSTRYWITHOUT PLAYING ON THE F AME FACTOR?

With his long locks and musical side project, Nottingham Forest forward Paul Mcgregor was the epitome of the football/britpop crossover in the 1990s – and since quitting the game at 29, he’s enjoyed critical acclaim with post-punk noise-makers Ulterior... Football. I was a typical footy-mad kid. Aged 12, I knew I was joining Brian Clough’s Forest, so I pretty much sacked off school –it was hard to think about anything else. Luckily there was a cool kid in my class and he got me into bands. I saw Suede live, and I lost my mind. Then I got into Bowie, the Manics, early Verve Verve... I was in this macho football culture, but had to restrain myself from going in wearing eyeliner! I had the long hair, so I got enough stick. In retrospect it was a bit embarrassing being in Merc – they were just a school band, really. It got the wrong kind of attention. Some people brand you as lazy if you’re into music, but that was far from the case. My team-matesteam at Forest would be getting smashed in terrible nightclubs, but I’d be at a gig, sober. I was always committed. When I was at Northampton. I hated it there. It was a pit, and I’d lost my love of football. I could’ve signed for Grimsby, but I thought: why not do music properly? By this point I was in Ulterior with my brother, and we were doing well on the London scene. We’d had our name on the front of NME and were doing loads of mad gigs with all kinds of maniacs in the crowd. It was fantastic. I never mentioned being an ex-footballer when I was doing music. We supported the Sisters of Mercy, we did huge shows around Europe and in Japan, we released two albums, and occasionally someone would realise who I was and say: “F**king hell, it’s you! You scored in Europe!”, or whatever. They both leave you wrecked. I had some great moments in football – playing at Anfield as a Liverpool fan. But I’d take playing in front of 4,000 people with the band in Japan ahead of playing in front of 4,000 fans at Sixfields. Football is too all-consuming now. And if I’d been a really big name, it would have blocked me from having the music taken seriously. Ulterior are still going and we’ve got plans to record more. But I’ve now got a four-year old daughter, so touring isn’t something that I want to do often. I’ve got a T-shirt business called With The Gods, which I run with Shaun Barker, the ex-derby skipper. Well, nearing 40, I had to get a proper job eventually…