Knife attack made Gray grow up fast
ANDRE GRAY has been talking at length about his battles on the field when the subject eventually turns to the prominent scar that stretches across his left cheek.
To Gray’s credit, the Brentford striker speaks freely about his troubled past, admitting that he was something of a bad boy as a teenager growing up in Wolverhampton.
Gray, who has scored 16 times in the SkyBet Championship for his promotionchasing side, was part of a street gang who became involved in a fierce brawl when he was 18.
His left cheek was sliced open in the fight, a wound so serious that it jolted the former Shrewsbury Town forward into changing his lifestyle almost overnight. Gray, who plays up front against Middlesbrough in the play- off semi-final first leg at Griffin Park tonight, said: ‘ I was getting into trouble. I got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time but it made me grow as a person.
‘ I was stabbed. I didn’t deserve it but I was putting myself in certain situations where it was bound to happen. It’s part of where I was from and part of my life but since then I haven’t looked back.
‘I didn’t feel the pain at all. The adrenaline — I didn’t even know it had happened. I woke up the next day and instead of dwelling on it and thinking, “Oh my God I’ve got a big scar on my face”, I thought it could have been my eye or my neck. It could have been a lot worse.
‘It made me get up and get on with it. I had to move on with my life and I haven’t looked back since then.’
Gray, now 23, admits that he was in with the wrong crowd, hanging around street corners with friends when he should have been concentrating on his fledgling football career.
He drifted into non-League football with Telford and Hinckley before he got another break in the professional game with Luton Town three years ago.
‘I was worse when I was a kid in gangs,’ said Gray. ‘I started to grow out of it a lot. It was just the wrong people more than anything. I was in clubs with the wrong crowd who were still in bad trouble with other people.
‘But sometimes it’s hard to get away from it when they’re your friends.
‘ Yeah, I’ll never forget where I came from, or who my friends are, but I know there is a time and a place to be with them. That’s not being with 20-30 people in a nightclub or walking around the streets.’
He has taken his second chance, emerging as one of the best finishers in the lower divisions after his move to Brentford last summer.
They face a massive challenge against Middlesbrough over two legs but Gray is convinced Mark Warburton’s side can reach the final against either Norwich or Ipswich.
‘The first time we played them (last September) we lost 4-0 but we were a completely different team then,’ said Gray. ‘In the second game in January they didn’t deserve their 1-0 win.
‘It’s completely different now. It’s the play- offs. There’s a lot riding on the game so anything can happen.’