Andy Gray Speaks (And The Result Is Glorious)

Andy Gray: A Man For Whom The Quip "Older, Wiser" Only Half-Applies

Over the course of our time here at UF, we’ve enjoyed coining many phrases and kicking off many memes. SFB; Suck It, Barclays!; the F*ck-You Brace — all are revered and used fondly on occasion.

However, by far the best one to emerge in recent times involves our dear Scottish friend Andy Gray, the contrarian in the commentary box, the maniac behind the mic, and the one who never fails to say something that is almost always directly proved wrong on the pitch minutes later.

And now, he’s indulging in a chat with the Guardian, and what fun it is!

We’ll leave the bulk of it for you to enjoy at your leisure, though a couple of fun points leap off the computer screen (Guardian in Bold, Gray’s responses in italics):

So Andy, we’ve always wanted to know. Do you ever regret not taking the Everton manager’s job? Occasionally.

Occasionally? Yes … occasionally. [Long pause]

But you’ve already got the best job in football … Well although I do believe that I have been privileged to have had the best job in football for 20 years, I think if you’re a football person, which I hope I am, there is still something inside me that would want to feel what Sir Alex Ferguson feels, what Arsène Wenger feels …

Rage? [Laughs] Not necessarily, you know, I’d like to feel what Harry Redknapp must have felt when Portsmouth won the FA Cup. There’s a part of me inside that wonders could I have ever achieved the things that those men have achieved. Could I have walked a team out at Wembley? Could I have won a European trophy? Could I have won … whatever? But I can’t stress enough that it’s only occasionally.

I’m sure on some level, Andy Gray would have been a magnificent manager. Sadly, the only place in which that such a thought occurs is inside Andy Gray’s mind. The record must show that he was offered the gig and decided to stay in the comfy confines of a chair next to Martin Tyler, which in itself probably tells us all we need to know about what kind of fortitude Andy Gray might possess as a manager.

The final point is absolutely glorious, summarizing for all of us just what it means to think like Andy Gray:

Have you ever finished watching a game featuring a team that was either so good or so inept that you stood behind your tactics board on live TV and thought “I have no idea what to say”? Well, what people don’t understand is that a lot of the time the reason a team wins or loses a game is not about how much you know about the game or how good you are.

Eh? Well, an Olympian needs to peak once every four years and a tennis player or golfer needs to peak four times a year for the grand slams or majors, but a footballer has to peak twice a week, almost. Now that’s hard and because of that footballers have bad days. So if a Premier League side is playing Barcelona in the Champions League, I’m hoping that Lionel Messi has a bad day. If everyone turns up and plays, it’s very difficult to stop great players. But sometimes they have off-days, maybe because they’ve got a niggle and aren’t feeling the best, or their missus has given them a rollocking before they left the house and they don’t feel like playing. There’s all these things that effect a football match that we’re unaware of or never even think about.

Put down your chalkboards, your binoculars, and your carefully-assembled collection of statistics, for they can only contain a story half-told. While yes, I’m sure that on occasion Gary Neville lets his opposite man beat him for pace because he’s busy thinking about what’s for dinner inside his sprawling country mansion, I’d bet it’s more to do with the fact that he’s old and not very good anymore.

Still, I shall attempt a Pundit column using Gray’s insight next weekend. Perhaps the Champions League will be won by the team less preoccupied with their angry wives.