Intriguing Backcloth To Historic Transfer

It was the biggest day in his football career and it nearly brought his years in the big time to a shattering finish. So says the central character at a staging long ago of the massive fixture awaiting Wolves this Saturday.

A Crystal Palace visit to these parts will still bring memories of a certain pre-match ceremony to the minds of many supporters and Andy Gray’s recollections of it remain highly readable. 

In case anyone doubts how close the 1980 League Cup final match-winner came to having the plug pulled on his British record transfer from Villa, let the man himself sum up the crisis that unfolded before two chairs and a table were famously placed on the pitch half an hour before that 1-1 First Division draw.

“What went wrong? Quite simple. I failed the medical,” Gray says. 

The rumour circling 44 years ago around the media corps, of which I was a shy junior member, was that his troublesome knee had been found out by the specialist. And the suspicions and tip-offs proved correct.

For those not familiar with what the striker has said over the years, we refer to his Shades of Gray book, which kicked off in chapter one with this very story.

“The transfer fell apart only an hour before I was due to sign for Wolves,” he wrote. “It was saved by an ultimatum from John Barnwell, who told his directors: ‘You either sign Andy Gray or I walk out here and now’.”

Gray’s publication hit the shelves long after he had served and left Wolves, and continued with the revelation: “Never before or since have I endured such a day. It started with expectation and excitement. Later, there was tension and shock, followed by relief and rejoicing.

“Wolves wanted to make a real show out of the signing, so everything was stage-managed. Television companies wanted to screen the signing but John Barnwell was determined the fans would enjoy it first and boldly declared: ‘Andy Gray now belongs to the people of Wolverhampton. We have made history with this deal and I want our public to be involved in it.’

“That was typical of John Barnwell, who had the rare gift of being able to lift and motivate people with his words. The Wolverhampton football folk must have looked upon him as their crusader and his daring bid of more than £1m for me had set the town alive.”

Gray has admitted in print that his knee looked like ‘a battleground’ (he compared it with a ‘plan of Spaghetti Junction’ by the time his 2004 autobiography, Gray Matters, was published!) and sensed something was wrong when Barnwell appeared that match-day lunchtime looking anything but his usual ‘bouncy and bubbly’ self.

The manager went into urgent discussion with his directors but later re-emerged with good news, the Scot relating that he was given the assurance: “I told the directors straight that, if they didn’t go ahead with the deal, they’d not only be looking for a new striker, they would need a new manager as well.

“Anyway, we’ve got a few thousand fans waiting for us out there. But, whatever you do, don’t breathe a word about this to anyone.”

Gray duly signed on the pitch, promised not to reveal any dangerous secrets and stuck to his word until Shades of Gray came out in 1986, when time had moved on considerably and he was in his second spell at Villa – this time after being taken there by Graham Turner.

As well as being a League Cup winner at Villa and Wolves and later a League champion with Everton, where he also scored both in an FA Cup final and a European Cup Winners Cup final on the way to winning those two trophies as well, Gray had individual awards to boost his considerable confidence. 

In 1976-77, he was named as the PFA Young Player of the Year and PFA Players’ Player of the Year – a double matched by Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009 and Gareth Bale in 2013.