“It’s really weird, because it almost feels like I never was a footballer,” says Glenn Murray, in a rare moment of reflection on one of Cumbria’s great modern careers. It is 18 months since the striker retired, Murray having become prominent in another role, as a media pundit.
He has embraced his new career, and says he has spent little time dwelling on his former life, no matter how memorable it was.
“I think, as footballers, we’ve got this mindset of always moving forward,” he says. “If you look back too much it can be quite sad, because your best years are behind you – from a physical point of view, they are without doubt.
“If you keep going over and over it again, I don’t think it’s healthy. It means…and I find it really hard to explain…but it’s almost like it never happened.”
Murray, 39, has moved so seamlessly into broadcasting that these perceptive reflections do not come as a surprise. The man from Maryport, who rose from Workington Reds and Carlisle United to the Premier League, is in demand for his pointed and thoughtful views on the game.
He has worked on Sky, and frequently on the BBC, after a playing career when, among many achievements, he became the second-highest scorer in Brighton & Hove Albion’s history.
The transition has helped him make a clean break from playing. “This is my second year [since retiring] and I don’t necessarily miss playing football," he says. "There are certain things I’ll always miss, like the camaraderie of a dressing room, and obviously scoring goals. That’s a void in your life that you’ll never fill. But I’ve come to terms with that, and I’m just thankful that I did it."
Retiring, he says, has made him appreciate certain burdens in the game. "I couldn’t believe how much stress I carried around with me. About two weeks after I finished, it felt like I took a massive breath and relaxed.
"When I thought about it, I realised – you carry your own personal pride, I prided myself on scoring goals, and I was always playing in teams that were fighting for promotion in the Championship or looking to stay in the Premier League, I was always working out results, fixtures, form, 'Can I stay in the team, can I get in front of him, can I get to this or that…?' All of a sudden, there was nothing and it was like this huge weight off my shoulders that I didn’t even realise had been there.
"People say you have two months off in the summer, but you don’t. You have a moment, and then it all starts again. I remember getting promoted with Brighton, and everyone having such a great time. And two days later, I'm thinking, 'I don’t want to be Derby. I don’t want to be the worst team in the Premier League'. That was my worry. I carried that all summer. It just goes again, again, again."
Murray describes this as a "privileged pressure", one that does not necessarily apply to his work today on Football Focus, Final Score, BBC 5 Live and much else. He laughs at the memory of being so shy in his early playing days that he would actively avoid interviews. As he matured, he found that he enjoyed “the media circus” around the Premier League, and grew more comfortable behind a microphone.
He initially learned about the TV industry through work with Premier League Productions, with fellow ex-players such as Dion Dublin and Don Hutchison, and presenters like Mark Pougatch. His manager, Chris Hughton, allowed him the time to pursue this interest. “It [PLP] isn’t aired in the UK, only abroad, so it was a perfect learning curve for me. I could learn without the criticism of the UK – just the world! The more I did, the better I was told I was getting.
“The truth is I’ve attacked it as I attacked football all those years ago at Carlisle. I didn’t have that much to give at Carlisle under Simmo [Paul Simpson], but I worked really hard. That was the least I could do. I took that mindset into this new career.”
Murray says the “community” in the broadcasting world has helped him adapt, and is at ease, right now, with the fact he has taken this route, rather than coaching. “I remember going to the Brighton-Man United game at the end of last season, when Brighton won 4-0, and that was the first time I really got the pang. The stadium was on its feet and I looked down at the coaching staff – Graham Potter, my friend Bruno, Billy Reid – and I really missed being involved in that scenario.
“But when I removed myself from it, sat down and took the emotion out of it, I asked myself, ‘Are you willing to put six 12-hour shifts in a week to get maybe that one high a year?’ When I asked myself that, the answer was a resounding no.”
There is much to look back on with Murray, but he is so interesting on the issues surrounding retirement that we stay, for a while, in the more recent past. He called it a day at the end of the 2020/21 season, after a loan spell with Nottingham Forest.
“I had it really good, where I was playing on my doorstep for five years [with Brighton], dropping the kids off at school, picking them up, and playing in the Premier League - then all of a sudden I had to go back on the road, to Watford, then up to Nottingham. At 37, I was living away from my family, young lads were running past me in training on a Wednesday afternoon…and it didn’t hurt any more. I just knew then.
“Maybe lockdown had something to do with it – with no crowds, it was quite depressing inside stadiums, and a lot of the football was quite negative. At Brighton, a year before, I’d had conversations with the club, and it was suggested I wouldn’t be playing as often the following year.
“My last home game…the whole group were going out together, but I didn’t. I went home, sat with my wife, and I was so upset. I knew it was the last time I would go on the Amex field, and I literally sobbed all night. That was a long night.”
Murray spent his remaining days out on loan but says that, the following March, he knew 2020/21 would be his last season. Though Forest boss Chris Hughton tried to tempt him into playing longer, the striker was resolved. His final game was a 2-1 home defeat to Preston North End on May 8. “That afternoon, I just took an extra moment on the pitch. I knew that was it.”
It was his 593rd appearance in professional football, an impactful career which brought 207 goals. When Murray does go further back, he can pinpoint the stages when he leapt forward, or was urged along the way. Workington was the beginning.
“I grew up quick,” he says. “I was playing with lads like Will Varty, Billy Barr and Gary Milne. I’d get kicked from pillar to post and those lads stuck up for me.”
Murray shone in America for Wilmington Hammerheads, under the former Workington man Dave Irving, before returning to England with a trial at Carlisle, a spell at Barrow and then a permanent move to Brunton Park under Simpson in 2004.
Murray played in some big games in United’s Conference promotion season - not least their play-off final victory against this weekend's opponents Stevenage - and was often an impact sub when they won the League Two title the following term. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” he says. “It completely shaped me. Lads like Chris Billy, Chris Lumsdon, Paul Arnison and Michael Bridges were so good with me. They would talk me through games and taught me so much.
“Above all else, we never took it too seriously. It would always be fun. I think that’s one of the best ways to get the best out of a young lad. As well as that, probably from my upbringing and work ethic, I wanted to prove myself to that group. They were all Football League players, and I’d come from Workington. The very least I could do, I thought, was do their running for them, and take whatever chance came.
“We had such a good squad. There were different pockets in the dressing room – Irish lads, Geordie lads, Manchester lads – but everyone got on. I used to love playing for the reserves, the camaraderie, Bushead [kitman Andy Horn] putting a vote out on whether we’d be having Chinese, fish and chips or pizza after the game. That probably wouldn’t happen now.
“There was a really good energy around the place, and that came from Simmo. He really looked after me. When he pulled me in and said he was going to give me a new deal, I didn’t have to ask, didn’t have an agent. He was like a fatherly figure – and a fair person in football, which is hard to come by.”
Murray’s chances were limited by the brilliance of Bridges and Karl Hawley, and feels Simpson’s departure to Preston in 2006 spelled the end for him at Carlisle. He eventually went to Stockport County, and then Rochdale, to build his first-team career. “Even though I’d hung onto the coat-tails of some better players at Carlisle, I knew I hadn’t made it myself. I left with the same drive and motivation, but with a little more confidence.”
Murray flourished at Spotland, under Steve Parkin and Keith Hill, and by 2008 had scored his way to Brighton in League One. He went on to become prolific for the Seagulls in a team shaped by Dean Wilkins and finessed by Gus Poyet, who won the third tier in style in 2011.
He then joined Crystal Palace in the Championship. Murray was firmly on the rise, and kept scoring, but admits his career was not flourishing in a lasting way until he arrived at pivotal times in 2013. “Dougie Freedman, the Palace manager, had to sit me down and tell me to be more professional in how I lived my life. I’d be last into training and first away.
"He’d be like, ‘What’s going on, why are you not in the gym?’ And, ‘Why are you only getting six hours’ sleep?’ We had to fill a sleep score in, and he [Freedman] said I wasn’t getting enough. He told me to go out and buy the biggest bed I could, and spend a lot of money on a mattress. He also told me to eat better.
“He changed my mentality. At the end of that season, I snapped my ACL – and my attitude then went into overdrive. From that point on, I was probably fitter and better than I ever was in my career.”
Murray says he now recognised the need to make the most of every small margin, and believes those eureka moments at Palace both prolonged his career and made him a better player as he recovered from injury and moved into his thirties. A move to Bournemouth was not a great success but he says he still learned from the dedication of Eddie Howe – then a return to Brighton, a creative side who needed a goalscorer like him, was a glove-like fit.
Murray had already settled in Sussex and the move helped him look after his body rather than spend more hours in the car. He went on to score prolifically again, and enjoyed some heady days in the Premier League.
“The highlight? I suppose just having that belief and confidence I was good enough to score goals in the Premier League," he says. "You just wanted to hold onto that feeling forever.
“There was a time when Chris [Hughton] left me on the bench at Anfield, and Jurgen Klopp gave me a big cuddle and said, ‘I’m glad you’re on the bench today’. Moments stand out – scoring for Palace in Steven Gerrard’s last game at Anfield, then going to sit with my dad and watch Steven walk round the pitch. Being recognised by people I idolised, like Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Old Trafford, who said, ‘Keep going as long as you can, you’re doing really well’. Bits of encouragement from people you never would have thought knew your name.”
Murray cites Stoke City’s Ryan Shawcross as a defender from whom he “got no change”, but says there were others with higher reputations who were not as strong as anticipated. He says many underestimated Brighton. “Even our own team-mates underestimated us at times. We would make these big signings from European leagues, and they'd just see Brighton as a stepping stone. A few weeks in and they’d be like, ‘Wow, this is a different level’. They couldn’t live with the standard.”
Murray could - and for a spell was among the most prolific English strikers. There was brief talk of an England call-up. “It was just after Gareth Southgate had taken over. I think if Sam Allardyce had still been in charge, there might have been a chance. But Gareth took it a different direction…and, to be fair, it’s been massively successful.”
He does not cite this as a regret, just one episode in a career he is grateful for. He left it as Brighton’s leading post-war scorer, their top Premier League marksman and their most prolific living player. “But like any goalscorer, I always wanted more," he says. "I look at another club and their top scorer’s got 260, and I’m like, ‘Well, 111 is quite measly actually!’
“It’s natural to compare yourself. But when you strip it back, for me to be the highest living scorer for Brighton & Hove Albion...I suppose it’s quite special.”
Murray may be many miles from home but keeps a watchful eye on his old clubs. He is pleased two of them – Carlisle and Barrow – are both competing well in the Football League, while on the evening we meet, he has driven to Crawley to catch up with Simpson in the Blues’ team hotel. He has also come with one of his Brighton shirts for Charlie Haugh, son of his former United fitness coach Geoff Haugh.
“With Simmo back…it just feels apt, like history repeating itself," he says of Carlisle. "If he can get them up, what an amazing feat that would be, considering where they were last year. It just shows what he’s like as a manager, with the infrastructure he brings. It’s no fluke.”
Murray says he enjoyed going up against younger Cumbrians in the autumn of his career. He swapped shirts with Jarrad Branthwaite after Forest faced Blackburn, and caught up with Dean Henderson after a clash with Sheffield United. He is a little bashful, though, when I mention the idea of him being a standard-bearer for young players from his home county. Taylor Charters, the Carlisle midfielder who also comes from Maryport, once cited Murray’s success as something to aspire towards.
“Do you know what? I haven’t read anything like that,” he says. “But it’s nice to hear. It really is.”
Later that night I send him a copy of Charters’ comments. Murray, who flew the flag so well both for Cumbria and an enduring sort of football journey, appears genuinely touched by the sentiment. His surprise tallies with a man who is modest about what he did - and who is seldom one for looking back.
“Well, I just have with you,” he smiles. “But it’s done. You’re important and in people’s minds one day, and the next day you’re forgotten about. And that is football.”
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