Grays Athletic  

They have a history going back well over 100 years but, as the saying goes, Grays Athletic supporters have never had it so good.   

A century of football saw relatively few high spots but the turn of the new Millennium saw the Essex club catapulted into the national spotlight and establish themselves as one of the top clubs in NonLeague Football landing the FA Trophy in successive seasons as well as clinching promotion to the Conference.

Grays Athletic were playing at their present ground in 1906 but it wasn’t until 1912 that the club entered senior football taking up a place in the newly formed Athenian League.  

Their flirtation with Athenian League was brief, Athletic playing just two seasons before the First World War.   

And it wasn’t until 1945 that the club again stepped up a level when they were founder members of the Corinthian League winning the championship and the Essex Senior Cup in their first season.   

The Essex Thameside Trophy was won in 1948 but no more honours came the clubs way and, in 1958, they rejoined the Athenian League finishing a creditable fifth behind such heavyweights as Barnet, Wealdstone, Maidstone and Hendon.   

Unfortunately that was as good as it got with Grays becoming a perennial lower mid-table side throughout the following decades.  Though there was little to celebrate on the field the club took a giant step forward in 1981 when they purchased their ground.   

An Essex Senior Cup triumph saw the 1990s consigned to history though the 2000s started with success with Athletic being runners-up in Isthmian League Division One.  Grays took second spot behind Croydon on goal difference from Maidenhead United and promotion to the Premier Division immediately signalled a huge turnaround for the club. 

Great runs in the FA Cup saw Grays Athletic reach the First Round proper three times in four seasons between 2001 and 2004.  But it was to be their success over the next two years in the FA Trophy which would see the small Essex club become one of the biggest names in NonLeague Football.   

Having not really made an impression in the competition previously 2004/05 saw Grays, now a full-time outfit, storm to the final taking such scalps as Altrincham, Exeter and Burton Albion along the way.   

A 7-0 semi-final aggregate win over Nigel Clough’s Burton saw Grays making their way to Villa Park to take on Hucknall Town.    

Grays were held to a 1-1 draw after taking the lead through a 64^th minute John Martin goal.  A Danny Bacon equaliser eventually took the match to penalties were Grays eventually won a heart-stopping shoot-out 6-5 with keeper Ashley Bayes saving a Russell Cooke penalty to win the Trophy for his club.   

That year also saw success in the League with Grays becoming the first winners of the Conference South to earn promotion to the top tier of NonLeague Football for the first time. 

The next season saw Grays retain the FA Trophy with first-half goals from Dennis Oli and Glenn Poole enough to see off the challenge of Woking.   

The club even looked bound for the Football league after topping the Conference table in the early part of the season but eventually finished third before losing in the Play-Off Semi-Finals to Halifax Town.   

The Second Round of the FA Cup was also reached in 2006; a run which saw an historic 3-0 win at York City; the first time that Grays had beaten Football League opposition.  

Unfortunately the season finished on a downbeat note with manager Mark Stimson leaving the club to be replaced, briefly, by Frank Gray.   

Justin Edinburgh is the current manager at the Rec as the club look forward to more success following a struggle to avoid relegation in 2007.