Full name Francis Tierney Gray 1971–1973 Leeds United Playing position | Height 1.77 m (5 ft 9 ⁄2 in) Place of birth Glasgow, Scotland Name Frank Gray | |
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Date of birth (1954-10-27) 27 October 1954 (age 61) | ||
Francis Tierney Gray (born 27 October 1954 in Glasgow) is a Scottish football player and manager. Gray played for Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, Sunderland and Darlington, while he also represented Scotland 32 times.
Contents
- Leeds United
- Nottingham Forest
- Return to Elland Road
- International career
- Management career
- Post management career
- Family football links
- As a player
- International goals
- References
Gray has managed Darlington, Farnborough Town, Grays Athletic, Woking, Basingstoke Town and Bashley.
Leeds United
Gray was one of the new generation of Leeds United players of the mid-1970s charged with the task of maintaining the club's success after the Don Revie era.
Gray, younger brother of Eddie, joined the club under Revie as a 17-year-old midfielder and made his debut in 1973, scoring a goal in his first start. Revie had lost regular left back Terry Cooper to a broken leg the year before and needed to find replacements, and Gray was given his chance as a left-back as a result.
He did not stay in the side, with a reshuffled defence allowing Trevor Cherry to take the left back spot for the end of the season which consisted of two cup finals (the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup) both of which Leeds lost. Revie did invite Gray to travel with the squad to Wembley and he sat next to his manager during the defeat to Sunderland.
Gray was similarly spared regular football in the first team at such an early age the following year, with Cherry settled into the left back role. Leeds won the League championship thanks to an unbeaten start to the season of 29 games. Gray only played three times and did not qualify for a medal.
The following season, he made 18 appearances in the League and usurped Cherry for the No.3 shirt in the European Cup final in Paris, which Leeds lost 2–0 to Bayern Munich. As the Revie team disbanded due to age – Revie himself had quit for the England manager's job the year before – Gray found himself tagged as one of the bright young things who would maintain the work of the previous team, alongside Gordon McQueen and Joe Jordan.
Nottingham Forest
He left Leeds in 1979 for £500,000 and joined Nottingham Forest.
Gray slotted into the team and played in his second European Cup final in 1980, making him the first player to appear in the final for two different English clubs. This time he was successful as Forest won 1–0 against a Hamburg SV side which included Kevin Keegan. Gray also finished on the losing side earlier in the season when Forest were beaten in the League Cup final by Wolves, thanks to a single goal from unrelated fellow Scotsman Andy Gray.
Return to Elland Road
Despite his success, Gray never fully settled at Forest and accepted an invitation in 1981 to return to Leeds by former teammate Allan Clarke, who was now manager. It was a £300,000 deal which got Gray back into Elland Road, but in the first season of his return Leeds were relegated.
Clarke was fired from Leeds after the drop and Gray's brother Eddie took over. The younger Gray played for four years under his brother's stewardship but Leeds could not regain promotion and Gray left for Sunderland in 1985, this time never to return. His tally for Leeds stood up at 396 appearances and 35 goals.
International career
Gray made his debut for Scotland in a 1–0 win over Switzerland in 1976, and won more caps in late 1978, having missed out on a place in the squad for that summer's World Cup in Argentina.
Gray was selected for Scotland's World Cup squad for the 1982 tournament in Spain, and he played in all three of the group games against New Zealand, Brazil and the USSR, though Scotland did not progress further.
His international career ended in 1983 after 32 appearances and one goal.
Management career
During his second spell at Leeds, Frank coached Collingham Under 16s. After his second stint at Leeds, he helped Sunderland gain promotion from Division Three, then helped Darlington into the Football League as assistant to Brian Little in the 1990s and took Farnborough Town to the Nationwide Conference South play-offs in 2005–06. He moved to Grays Athletic with assistant Gerry Murphy to replace Mark Stimson, but his stay was short-lived. He was brought to Woking by Football Technical Director, Colin Lippiatt, in May 2007 with the aim of taking the Cards into the Football League.
Gray was appointed manager at Woking on 3 May 2007 on a two-year deal, replacing Glenn Cockerill. He departed by mutual consent on 8 April 2008.
He was appointed manager of Basingstoke Town in the Conference South, but he parted ways with the club through mutual consent, and has been succeeded by Jason Bristow (academy manager) on a temporary contract until the end of the season.
Gray was appointed (on 31 May 2012) as manager at Evostik Premier Division South club side Bashley in June 2012. On 19 June 2013 Gray and his sideman Gerry had stepped down from Bashley, but was replaced by Former Bashley players Paul Gazzard and Stewart Kearn.
Post-management career
Gray currently lives in Australia where he works as a pundit for Fox Sports Australia's Premier League coverage.
Family football links
His son Andrew Gray, a striker, came through the ranks at Leeds and later played for Nottingham Forest, Bury, Preston, Oldham Athletic, Bradford City, Sheffield United, Sunderland, Burnley, Charlton Athletic and Barnsley. He also won two full international caps for Scotland.
His nephew Stuart has represented Celtic and Reading as a full-back.
As a player
Leeds United
Nottingham Forest
Sunderland
Darlington