Murray’s hurry
Seagulls striker makes up for lost time
To understand the modern-day Glenn Murray, it helps to go back a few years, to a different era and a different footballing world. He was a similar sort of player back then, whether he was representing Barrow, Carlisle United or Stockport County, but the young Murray carried hidden burdens as he toiled in the lower leagues. For all his obvious attributes, which are now so effective for Brighton and Hove Albion in the top division, there was a lack of belief in his own ability. And for all his goals, there was a damaging tendency to over-think.
“When I was young, I would dwell on games and beat myself up about a result,” he says. “I would lock myself away in the house, almost punishing myself and those around me. My family, they did not see the best side of me.
“I went to see somebody who helped me, a sports psychologist, and he said I need to get out, that it is more important to get out of the house when you have lost rather than when you have won. When you have won, you are content in whatever you do.
“He said to try to get out when I lose. To go to the cinema, go out for a meal. It has caused a quite a few arguments in the past – people saying to me, ‘What are you doing out? What are you doing showing your face?’ – but that is what works for me. It might not work for everyone, but for me it does.”
A decade on, Murray seems far more at ease. He knows the game, and he knows his game. It is hard to imagine this Murray suffering from those problems, but it is clear that they were testing days. After growing so disillusioned as a teenager that he nearly quit the sport, Murray played for Workington Reds in Cumbria and Wilmington Hammerheads in North Carolina before returning home and climbing the leagues.
The gradual progress from one level to the next, scoring goal after goal and reaching new height after new height, looks smooth in hindsight, but was not without stress. “I stepped into a professional dressing room late,” he says. “It’s a strong environment. They are quite ruthless and for somebody who isn’t used to this life, it can be quite daunting. It is difficult when you first do it. The only thing that got me to believe in myself was scoring goals.”
It is fortunate, then, that goals have always come naturally. But it is also a sign of Murray’s durability and adaptability that he was able to, in his words, “get to grips” with a higher standard of football. “At each level you go up into, there is that fear of the unknown,” he says.
Now the fear is felt by Brighton’s Premier League opponents, many of whom have struggled to contain a striker who turns 35 this month. After scoring 14 goals last season, Murray has plundered three in four games this time around.
The first of those came in Brighton’s battering of Manchester United, when Murray wreaked havoc. Next up are Southampton, who host Chris Hughton’s side tomorrow night. Mark Hughes, the Southampton manager, has been quick to praise Murray, saying the Brighton forward is “one of the few types of his ilk” remaining in the game.
Trends change, though, and football evolves. Alongside Murray, there have been stand-out performances this season from Watford’s Troy Deeney and Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic. All three would be loosely classed as “traditional” strikers.
“Even if there aren’t many of us around, I think we are coming back into the fold,” Murray says. “We went through a period where small and quick [strikers] were really in – playing with false nines and false 10s and things like that, but now I think more teams are going back to a bigger guy up front. Somebody who can head the ball rather than just running beyond. It goes through different eras and different times.
“Whatever level I have been at, it’s what I have done. I don’t think it’s any more effective now but it seems to get more plaudits because it’s in the Premier League, even though I have been doing it for years.”
Such is Murray’s longevity that he almost straddles these footballing eras. He came through at a time when strikers were supposed to be powerful target men, and has watched as the game was transformed by a desire to imitate the passing style of Pep Guardiola’s ground-breaking Barcelona side.
“I think everyone did follow the Barcelona philosophy, and a lot still are,” Murray says. “But for a lot of clubs it just does not work, unfortunately. We see foreign managers come into the Premier League and change the whole dynamic of a club, and weeks later they have left because it’s not
‘I turned professional late. The only thing that made me believe in myself was goals’
quite working.” It speaks volumes for Murray’s ability to maximise his attributes that he has played arguably the best football of his career this calendar year, when he has also performed with the shadow of an ongoing tax fraud investigation hovering in the background.
He was arrested in January, but responded by scoring three goals in his next three games.
Murray believes playing in the Premier League, where there are fewer games than the Championship, will help to prolong his career, but stops short of saying how long he can maintain this level of form. He is the throwback striker who prefers to look forward but, for now, it is best to treat it game by game and goal by goal. As he knows well, no good will come from over-thinking.
“If you asked me four years ago, I would probably have said that I could not be playing in it [the Premier League] now,” he says.
“You just never know. I am taking each game as it comes, enjoying it and taking that little bit of extra time to look around a full stadium, because I know it’s not going to last forever. But I will try and make it last as long as possible.”