GRAY HAS STEERED HIS TAXI U'S-TURN

TAXI for Matt Gray’ read one post on the Sutton United fans’ forum in late October 2019.

- DAVID RICHARDSON

The U’s were in the middle of a 14-game run that featured just one win under their new boss.

Gray, 39, had been coaching for more than a decade before he took what was described by many at the time as the hardest job in Non-League football.

Paul Doswell had unexpectedly stood down after 11 years as manager, driving Sutton from Step 3 to the National League play-offs, and an FA Cup fifth round clash against Arsenal in 2017.

With that tie still fresh in the memory, a 5-2 defeat at lower-league Billericay Town in a fourth qualifying round replay ramped up the frustrations of a few fans.

“Matt asked me not that long ago, ‘Be honest, when this was going on and I was under a bit of pressure, was there any thought about changing?’” Sutton chairman Bruce Elliott told The NLP. “Not one second did we think about it. It was never discussed in a meeting, nobody within the club had mentioned it.

“There were a few posts on our fans’ forum, but other than that what people had to remember is we were quite close to him, we were talking all the time about team selection and what’s happened.

“We just needed a little something to turn it round and as soon as a couple of players came in that seemed to turn it round and we’ve never looked back since.”

Elliott reflects on that difficult start just days after Gray led Sutton to the National League title and promotion to the Football League for the first time in their 123-year history.

The triumph, secured last Sunday with a resounding 3-0 victory over Hartlepool United, will go down as one of the greatest Non-League stories ever told.

Baptism of fire