Brian Quailey, Tony Thorpe, Liam George… Boro’s seen enough duff forwards over the years. And Greg Luer is also on that list. In football, the conventional thinking is that a striker should be able to come in and score goals. That’s what they’re on the pitch to do. OK, so Graham Westley’s title-winning escapades shook that up a bit with the likes of Chris Beardsley. But, fundamentally, you want strikers to put the ball in the net. Sadly, Luer is one of the recruits that failed to do that.
Greg Luer: Who Is He?
Luer started his career on the south coast; Hove Rivervale, Whitehawk, and Eastbourne Borough among his first clubs. But it was a three-year spell at Burgess Hill Town that caught the eye of an impressed Hull City scout Dean White in 2015. At the Hillians, he’d made his debut as a young 17-year-old and hopes were high that he was about to become a big talent. And so, in 2015, the lad made the move north to the Tigers – then of the Premier League parish.
When did he sign and who from?
In early 2016, our form was in need of some improvement. By some, we mean a lot. Darren Sarll had been chosen to clear up the mess that Teddy Sheringham had left. Back-to-back wins in the first half of February raised hopes of a revival, but we then lost three on the spin without scoring a goal to take us into March. Looking for that spark, we turned to the loan market. Luer came in on 12 March – the same day we travelled to Wycombe Wanderers.
By this point, the Tigers had already let him go on loan to Port Vale and Scunthorpe United. So, this wouldn’t necessarily be a new assignment for the Brighton-born striker.
Did he play often?
He did, actually.
In fact, Luer saw action in 10 of our remaining 11 games. It started with that away day across to Wycombe on the day he arrived. While he came off the bench at Adams Park, he started each of the other nine. The only game he missed was a 1-0 defeat at Notts County on 9 April 2016. We’d end up picking up 14 points from the 33 left on the board. Luer himself, however, contributed a sum total of zero goals. That maybe underplays his contribution. But it’s what he’s judged on.
He did set up a Byron Harrison goal against Oxford United. And that was part of the evidence to extend his initial loan spell until the end of the 2015-6 campaign.
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Where is Greg Luer now?
Luer returned to the Tigers at the end of that season. The following year, he turned out once at the KC Stadium – only to collect an injury in that same game. First team opportunities were few and far between after that. Nigel Adkins gave him another crack after taking charge, but he was out on loan once more during the second half of the 2017-8 season at Maidstone United. And it was more or less the curtain call on his time at Hull; Luer released at the end of the season.
Woking picked him up in summer 2018 and the forward started to find himself among the goals. And we feel conflicted about that because it helped the Cards to earn promotion from National League South. He wouldn’t play a part in their first season back in the National League, though. A chance to rejoin a boyhood club – Eastbourne Borough – came about in summer 2019. Goals flowed again for him, but any impact that contribution would have was twice halted by Covid.
