Archie Gray’s debut for Leeds United against Cardiff City in the first game of the season means that since his great uncle Eddie first took to the field for The Whites in January 1966 at least one member of the Gray family has appeared over a quarter of Leeds United’s league games since. With 1,060 now appearances over 57 years make the Gray family somewhat of a Leeds United dynasty. The first of the clan to play for Leeds United was Eddie Gray, making his debut on 1st January 1966 against Sheffield Wednesday at the age of 17 years, 350 days.
Eddie was a cultured winger who was an integral member of the legendary Revie team of the 1960s and 1970s. Eddie was without doubt the most gifted player ever to play for Leeds United, he was arguably better than George Best but did not get the same recognition. Gray was a schoolboy international for Scotland, and signed professional forms for Leeds at the age of sixteen in January 1965. When Eddie first came to Leeds he played in a practice match against the first team, after the game Jack Charlton told Don Revie that Leeds had better sign him as he did not want to have to play against him twice a season.
A winger in the classic mould, Gray was feted in world football for his ability to beat opposing full backs for pace and thought. As the Leeds team grew in stature and experience through the 1960s, Gray became a vital component of the team. In 1968 he was in the Leeds team which won the League Cup and the Fairs Cup and then the League championship a year later.
He was in the team which won the FA Cup against Arsenal in 1972, but missed out on a league winners medal when Leeds finally won the League again in 1974 thanks to more injury woes. From 1970 to 1975, when his skills should have been at their zenith and when he should have had the footballing world at his feet, he made just eighty-two League appearances. Written off by some but encouraged by Jimmy Armfield, he fought his way back to full health playing in the team which controversially lost the 1975 European Cup final in Paris to Bayern Munich. Also in the team that night was his younger brother Frank. In 579 appearances for Leeds, Eddie scored 69 goals.
Frank, like his brother came through the junior ranks at Leeds United, making his debut on 10th February 1973 at the age of 18 years, 106 days.
Although not as gifted as elder brother Eddie, Frank won thirty-two caps for Scotland in a career which saw him avoid major injury. He turned professional in November 1971 and, after two games as a substitute, one in the League at Leicester City on 10th February 1973, and the second in an away European Cup-winners’ Cup tie with Rapid Bucharest on 21st March 1973, scored on his full debut on 21st April 1973 against Crystal Palace at Elland Road, to emulate another feat of his elder brother.
Frank was one of the new generation of Leeds United players of the mid-1970s charged with the task of maintaining the club’s success after the Don Revie era. He got his real chance during the 1974-1975 season, making eighteen appearances in the League and usurping Trevor Cherry for the No.3 shirt in the European Cup final in Paris, which Leeds lost 2-0 to Bayern Munich. As the Revie team disbanded due to age, Revie himself had quit for the England manager’s job the year before, Gray found himself tagged as one of the bright young stars who would try to maintain the standard of the previous team, alongside the likes of Gordon McQueen and Joe Jordan.
