Sunshine on a Wayne-y Gray

On March 23rd 2002, Brighton and Hove Albion’s Division Two promotion bid suffered a serious blow. 31-goal striker Bobby Zamora dislocated his shoulder, leaving the Albion to face the business end of the season without their talismanic striker. Brighton needed a replacement – and their answer was Wayne Gray.

With just five games remaining, a five way battle for automatic promotion out of the third tier was brewing. Reading led the way, two points behind were the Albion, one point further back in third were Brentford with Stoke four points behind the Bees. It was tighter than two coats of paint.

Not the time you want to see your best player walk off the pitch in a lot of agony with his arm in a makeshift sling. 55 minutes of Brighton’s home game with Notts County had expired when Zamora was the subject of a terrible running challenge from Danny Stone.

Zamora was flung into the air, spun back towards the ground as if he was completing a skydive and hit the deck with such force and in enough of an awkward manner to put his shoulder out.

The Albion had been leading 2-0 at the time. Zamora opened the scoring within five minutes of the start, continuing his quest to beat Peter Ward’s longstanding record of 36 goals in a single season – something he would have had a real shot of doing had Stone not assaulted him.

Minutes after Zamora notched, Notts County’s game plan became apparent – forget playing football and take out the best player in the division.

Darren Caskey – father of future Albion midfielder Jake Forster-Caskey – clattered into Zamora for a booking straight from the restart. That set the tone and virtually every player in black and white took a swipe at Zamora over the course of the next hour.

Daniel Webb scored his one and only Brighton goal shortly before Zamora departed the action. The injury seemed to completely throw the Albion and County scored twice to salvage a draw on the same day that the chasing pack all won.

That collapse set alarm bells ringing – not that it came as a surprise. We already knew how dependent Brighton were on Zamora. A month earlier, he’d been sent off away at Oldham Athletic, earning a three game suspension.

The results in those matches he missed? Brighton 0-0 Wrexham with an 18-year-old Chris McPhee leading the line. Bournemouth 1-1 Brighton. And Stoke City 3-1 Brighton. Ouch.

Having to cope without Zamora for an extended period of time could have been terminal to the Albion’s promotion hopes. Peter Taylor knew he couldn’t rely on a teenage striker in McPhee or the erratic Lee Steele, who may or may not have had a skinful the night before to fill the void. And so 21-year-old Wayne Gray swapped the Wimbledon bench for the Brighton first team.

Gray already had experience of the lower leagues under his belt. Three weeks before he rocked up at Withdean, Gray had completed a three month loan in Division Three at Leyton Orient which yielded six goals in 17 games.

Spells with Port Vale and Swindon Town had preceded that, but filling the boots of Zamora was an altogether different task. Taylor had confidence in his new arrival, saying, “He is strong and quick and I am certain you will like him.”

It didn’t take Gray long to make an impression. 27 minutes of his debut to be precise as that speed which Taylor eluded to saw him burst through the Colchester United defence to put the Albion 2-0 ahead at Layer Road.

Brighton ended up running out 4-1 winners for a first three points away at Colchester since 1958. Richard Carpenter scored two very different free kicks – although the second couldn’t actually be credited to him.

The hosts had been controversially penalised for a back pass, leading to an indirect free kick in the box. Carpenter stepped up, leathered it goalwards and in it flew; with the referee decreeing that because the ball had flicked off a Colchester defender in the wall, it could count.

Carpenter should have taken the headlines for his free kicks. But it was Wayne Gray who was the talk of the 1,302 Brighton fans on the cramped away terrace.

His performance was bold and brave. Colchester had no answer to the frightening pace which had seen Gray put his name high on the list of the UK’s all-time sprinting times at Under 15 level. He’d also been a promising high jumper, which explained why he was so good in the air despite being only 5’8.

Suddenly, Zamora’s absence didn’t seem like the complete disaster many had been fearing after he’d left the field against Notts County seven days earlier.

Not that Zamora was absent for long. In fact, he missed just the Colchester game and the 2-1 Easter Monday victory over Bristol City, famous for Steele’s last minute winner and a stunning display of goalkeeping from Michel Kuipers.

Zamora returned for the 1-0 win away at Peterborough United which came just two weeks after he’d dislocated his shoulder. Gray was relegated to the bench, was a used sub for the 0-0 draw with Swindon Town which secured the Division Two title and then started in the 1-0 win away at Port Vale which rounded off the season.

And that was the end of the brief Brighton career of Wayne Gray. Circumstances conspired against him becoming a permanent Seagull; namely, Taylor’s resignation and Wimbledon’s financial woes.

Had Taylor remained as boss ahead of the Albion’s first season in the second tier for 11 years, then the club’s transfer policy may have looked very different. Paul Kitson was the first player through the door post-Taylor and he didn’t arrive until the 2002-03 season was underway.

The chaos of trying to replace Taylor which led to Martin Hinshelwood getting the job meant that the Albion were ill-prepared to sign any targets, even ones who had ended the previous campaign with the club.

Not that Wimbledon were likely to sell anyway. This was the summer in which they announced they would be moving to Milton Keynes and cutting back financially to do so. Suddenly, senior players were leaving and Gray was in their first team.

He carved out a decent career for himself. 68 goals in 365 games with spells at Southend United, Yeovil Town, a return to Orient, Grays Athletic and Cambridge United following on from his departure from the Dons in 2004.

Gray would go onto say about his time with the Albion, “Although I wasn’t at Brighton long I had a great time. I only played four games but I scored on my debut against Colchester and was then invited to join in their promotion celebrations when they went up.”

“It was fantastic as a young player to be part of that, especially when we went to the civic reception at the town hall in front of all their fans.”

According to an article from the Somerset Live which looked back on Yeovil’s 2006-07 League One play off final team, Gray’s whereabouts are unknown since he left his last club, AFC Hornchurch.

Hopefully, he’s bringing sunshine on a Wayne-y Gray somewhere.

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