Justin Gregory

Biography

One of the original seven to join us from Farnborough Town, Justin Gregory managed to fit in a brief spell at Crawley Town between his time with us. GW was clearly a fan of this left-back to bring him in twice, but it took until the 2004-5 campaign when he started to feature more in the line-up. While his first spell was affected by injuries, the second spell was a lot more fruitful. At both left-back and left-midfield in 2004-5, he had nearly 40 outings.

During the 2005-6 campaign, he found his left-back spot under threat. Barry Laker coming into the equation and, with GW’s move to a three-man defence, meant that Gregory’s time was at a premium. It ended up being no surprise, therefore, that he’d leave the club at the end of that season for the second and final time. Unless he comes back, which means this point is wrong. But we’d change it anyway. And you’d be none the wiser.

You could argue that Gregory was a good Conference performer. But you could also say that he wasn’t, on reflection, what we needed in our search for promotion to the Football League. Boro’ went in a new direction after Gregory left; GW leaving at the same time. In came Mark Stimson; bringing John Nutter with him. Maybe it was also that the role of the full-back was starting to evolve too?

Justin Gregory: After Boro’

Next stop for Gregory after us would be Havant & Waterlooville; a club at which he’d stay for two years. And maybe his most (or should that be least) memorable moment with the Hawks was a suspension that ruled him out of their famous FA Cup trip to Anfield. Upon leaving Havant, the left back moved to Burgess Hill and onto Shoreham – with a short-term spell at Croydon Athletic on the way.

The last we saw of him came more recently than that, however, as Southwick manager.