Gray, who also played for Crystal Palace, Coventry City and Walsall before heading out to Cyprus for a couple of years at the end of his career, hung up his boots in 2014 and moved into coaching. From the summer of 2021, Gray had returned to Arsenal – where he began his career – and took up the duties of under 18s assistant coach.
Now, though, he has returned to Blues, where he will become the club’s new under 15s lead as part of the academy revolution taking place at the club under Knighthead. Gray, who has a UEFA A License qualification, is one of many former players who now are back working at Wast Hills as the club aim to regain their Category One status.
Blues have installed the heavily experienced Mike Scott, who has returned to his boyhood club, this summer as the club’s academy head of coaching. He works alongside academy director Mike Rigg and academy manager Liam Daish and has made the move to appoint Gray.
We had some strong coaches apply for this role,” he explained. “Julian was chosen because he is a fantastic coach who shares brilliant detail, can demonstrate from a playing perspective when coaching and will add knowledge and experience to the programme. Julian is also a fantastic mentor for young people and will be another person in the building who will support players as they progress in their journey to becoming a professional footballer.
“Also, Liam Daish – our Academy Manager (Football) – myself and the staff are starting to put processes in place to support individual-specific development across the business end of the programme; his knowledge as a forward will be valuable to players who have aspirations to follow in his footsteps and play in the Premier League for this club in the future, like Julian did when we were previously at that level.
“For us having former players who want to come back because they have such an affinity to the club and want to help take us forward is a real asset to the development of our young players and will continue to take this fantastic academy and club in a strong direction.”
As well as Gray, Blues have also brought in former players Marcos Painter and Jonathan Grounds, who have been part of Blues squads in the club’s recent history.
“It’s great to see a number of former players back in the Academy now in coaching roles such as Marcos Painter working with our Under-16s and now Julian with Under-15/16s players. We also have Maik Taylor, of course, as our first team goalkeeper coach,” Scott added. “In my short time here so far, I can say we have some excellent coaches across all the age groups.
“Adding a blend of coaches that have professional playing experiences across Premier and Football Leagues not only helps develop the knowledge they can share to the players but also the coaches in the building who, in turn, can pass on some golden nuggets they pick up from them to the players. My experiences in coaching have always found having an excellent coach/teacher with excellent coach/player can be really powerful to the learning environment.”
