Club Career
Gray started his professional career as a player with Dundee United where he scored 46 goals in 62 appearances.
In October 1975, at the age of 19, he headed south to Aston Villa (newly promoted to the First Division) and won England's golden boot in 1976/77 with his tally of 25 league goals. His 29 goals in the following season earned him the PFA Young Player of the Year and PFA Players' Player of the Year awards (a historic double not repeated until Cristiano Ronaldo won both awards 30 years later). At the time he was the youngest player to earn the Players' Player of the Year award, and the first player to win more than one of the official three player of the year awards in the same season.
Gray then moved to Villa's local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 1979 for a then-British record £1.5m. After scoring the winning goal for Wolves in the 1980 League Cup final, he remained with the club through their relegation in 1982 (despite interest from Manchester United) and promotion a year later.
He moved to Everton in November 1983 for £250,000. He enjoyed two seasons with the Merseyside club, winning the FA Cup in May 1984 (scoring in the final against Watford in controversial fashion by heading the ball out of Watford's goalkeeper's hands).
A year later, he won the League Championship and European Cup Winners' Cup, also scoring in the final of the latter. He also reached another FA Cup final, but this time he was on the losing side as Everton were defeated by Manchester United.
Then came the arrival of England striker Gary Lineker from Leicester City in the 1985 close season. Despite angry petitions from Everton fans wanting to keep Gray at Goodison Park, he left the club on 10 July 1985, returning to Aston Villa in a £150,000 deal.
Despite starting the decade on a high as league champions in 1981 and European Cup winners in 1982, they had now declined to mid table mediocrity and the return of Gray was unable to turn things around as his arrival at Everton had done. He scored five goals from 35 league games in 1985–86 as Villa narrowly avoided relegation to the Second Division, and the following season he failed to score a single goal from 19 league games as Villa fell into the Second Division. He began the 1987–88 season still with Villa, but was transferred to their local rivals West Bromwich Albion in September 1987 having not featured in a first team game for Villa that season. His spell at Albion lasted less than a year, and was uneventful as they narrowly avoided relegation from the Second Division.
In mid-1988, he joined Rangers. He spent one season at Ibrox, helping them win the Scottish Premier Division title – the first of nine successive titles they would win.
He dropped into non-league football with Football Conference club Cheltenham Town before retiring in 1990.
Read more about this topic: Andy Gray (footballer Born 1955)
Famous quotes containing the words club and/or career:
“The creation of “strong-minded” women, so-called, is due to the individualism of men, to the modern selfish and speculative spirit which absorbs everything within itself and leaves women nothing but self-assertion for their protection and support.”
—“Jennie June” Croly 1829–1901, U.S. founder of the woman’s club movement, journalist, author, editor. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 44 (February 1870)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)