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Garry Grey has won more medals than most top-flight footballers. Not bad for a kit man.
Through his roles at Fulham and Chelsea, Grey has spent all of his adulthood rubbing shoulders with world-beating footballers and managers. Working under the likes of Kevin Keegan, Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti, Grey has insight that would make a young coach envious.
“It all started at Fulham when I was 16,” he tells FourFourTwo. “My nan wrote to ask for work experience, and in the end I stayed for 11 years. I saw the growth of Fulham all the way to the Premier League.”
The life of a kit man can be tough. Grey would work 12-hour days, six days per week, dealing with players’ needs and thousands of pieces of match gear. “The biggest thing about it is organisation – you’re basically looking after 30 kids,” he laughs. “You have to do everything for them.”
Mistakes in his game can be costly. “When Clint Dempsey came over from America to Fulham in 2007, he was one of the first players to have special insoles,” recalls Grey, “and in one of his first away games, I forgot them. He said that he couldn’t play without them. The physio had to make new insoles with some sort of tape and foam. He played in those.”
Ahead of the 2009-10 season, Grey switched from Fulham to neighbours Chelsea. “I remember my first day,” he says. “I walked into the dressing room and in front of me were Michael Ballack, John Terry, Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard. Then Ancelotti walked in. I was like, ‘Wow!’”
Chelsea’s 2012 Champions League Final win against Bayern Munich, in Munich, stands out as a special moment. “It was one of the best days of my life,” says Grey. “No one could sleep, so everyone was up at the crack of dawn, had breakfast, then we went up to the roof terrace. It was one of the most relaxed atmospheres I’d ever seen before a football match.
“I just thought to myself, ‘They are going to win this’. The lads had such a good feel about them that day.” Grey was bang on: Chelsea won on penalties. “When Didier netted the winning kick it was unbelievable – I still have his shirt, actually.”
Grey has winners’ medals from the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup. “Not bad for laying the kit out, is it?” he smiles. “Aaron Hughes and Chris Baird joke that I’ve won more than them put together.”
Now a fully-licensed football agent, Grey has his kit man days to thank for a stunning contacts book. Grinning, he reveals, “I probably have better contacts from being a kit man than some agents at big companies.”
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