Andre Gray: Ex-Wolves player becomes most expensive Black Country footballer in £18m deal
Ex-Wolves bad boy Andre Gray has become the most expensive Black Country footballer in history in an £18 million deal.
Wednesfield-born Gray, 26, is moving to Watford from Burnley in a transfer thought to be worth £18.5 million.
The ex-Wolves youth scored nine times in the Premier League last year.
He will become the most expensive footballer from the region, more than double the £8.5 million paid for Stan Collymore by Liverpool in June 1995.
And it will see him line up alongside fellow Black Country star Troy Deeney who previously played for Walsall and Halesowen Town.
Gray, however, has a chequered past. He was suspended for four matches and fined £25,000 last year after being found guilty of misconduct by the FA in relation to homophobic Tweets in 2012.
The striker also has a four-inch scar on his face after being knifed in the city in a gang fight in 2011.
A tattoo on his chest bears the phrase ‘Still I Rise’. He has spoken of the difficult upbringing which saw him become involved in the city’s gang culture.
He said: “When the stabbing happened, I thought ‘I need to sort myself out now’.
"That probably was the switch that cut myself off from all that kind of stuff. Still I Rise. It’s a good quote.
"Obviously you’re going to get adversity along the way, but as long as you can fight through it and get back up.
"It kind of made sense to me.”
He was released by Wolves at 13 – where his mother worked in the players’ lounge – and then by Shrewsbury.
Gray played for non-league teams including Telford before signing for Brentford in 2014.
A year later he moved to Burnley in a £6 million deal.
Watford this afternoon confirmed the deal had been completed.
