Out of love with football and eyeing a career in Rugby Union just a few years ago, Reece Grego-Cox tells LFW how QPR reignited his passion for football and gave him his first team bow.
It says something about the levels of frustration with how QPR has been run as a club, and how Harry Redknapp handled the squad of players available to him, that there was a public outcry similar to the one when Darren Peacock was sold to Newcastle after the news broke that Josh Laurent would be leaving Rangers' youth set up to move to Brentford earlier this season.
Laurent, one of the club's brighter prospects, said he couldn't see any way he'd ever play first team football at Loftus Road whereas at Brentford there were clear pathways to the seniors. And that's got nothing to do with QPR being significantly better than Brentford on the field, because they're in the same league next season and we'll quickly see how much the Bees have caught up while we've been apart.
QPR were promoted in 2013/14 by the skin of their teeth at Wembley in the play-off final, and they did it with a £77m wage bill in the second tier. Redknapp was allowed to bring in Oguchi Onyewu, a US international of 69-caps standing, and Javier Chevanton, who has 22 caps for Uruguay, to his side and sit them on the bench when other teams at that level would have put youth teamers there. Max Ehmer, for example, could easily have done the bench-sitting instead of Onyewu. Later, Yossi Benayoun was added. With automatic promotion out of reach but the play-offs secured, Rangers were faced with a series of dead rubber games in the league — in one midweeker at Blackburn, Redknapp picked Luke Young (a physically shot right back) at centre half for his first start in two years rather than promote a junior player.
It had built frustration among the fan base and demoralised the players further down the ladder. Laurent looked very decent in the juniors' play-off victory against Huddersfield 18 months prior, with a better touch and eye for a pass than most of his team mates, but he'd been a long-way shy of the visitors' Duane Holmes who has since gone on to make only sporadic appearances in their first team, and got sent back early from a loan at Yeovil. The loss of Laurent, at first glance, wasn't like Dean Parrett and Raheem Sterling walking away. It was just indicative of the way the club was going about things, that Brentford down the road have a superior youth and scouting set up.
Enter Reece Grego-Cox. Not only a youth team player being given first team chances at QPR — cameos against Spurs and Palace followed with 45 minutes against Newcastle when his speed and energy changed the game in the Hoops' favour and then 90 on the last day against Leicester — but potentially one Brentford got wrong and Rangers got right.
Grego-Cox, a triplet born in Hammersmith to a QPR supporting mum and brought up in Bedfont, was part of Brentford's junior set up in his early years but his experience there was less than positive and almost saw him quit the sport altogether.
"I was in the development squads at Brentford and they kept saying they were going to offer me a contract but never did," he recalls. "I just came home after school one day and said I didn't want to go any more and wanted to quit football. My mum and dad were shocked. I played no football for a year, it destroyed my love for it."
His sporting fix thereafter came in Rugby Union, where he was quickly picked up by Harlequins' junior teams and offered terms as a promising fly-half. But QPR scout (they do exist) Terry O'Sullivan had seen something in the lightning fast, aggressive youngster and wanted him to give football another shot.
"Terry is close with my family and he got me in at Bedfont Eagles, the local club where I live," Grego-Cox says. "He said 'why don't you come down, we'll get you back into football, get that smile back on your face'. I broke their scoring record at under 14s. Taking a year out and going back to Sunday League did me well. I enjoyed it, I scored a lot of goals and it got my confidence back up."
The subsequent move to QPR certainly pleased his mum Gina, a Rangers fan and part of a vocal Grego-Cox contingent in the away end at Leicester on Sunday, proud to see their boy make his full debut in the Premier League despite the trying circumstances.
"She's pleased, over the moon," says Reece. "Mum was much happier for me to pursue the football side of the career anywhere."
There was good and bad for Reece at the King Power Stadium. He saw little ball in the first half, against a vastly experienced and incredibly physical back three of Robert Huth, Wes Morgan and Marcin Wasilewski. Leroy Fer's total denigration of his defensive duties wide left saw the youngster moved there to start the second half, but it wasn't his position and you could tell when he was forced to try and defend the waves of home team attacks. Subsequently moved to the right, he did Jeffrey Schjlupp for pace and skill on a couple of occasions and whipped in dangerous crosses.
He's not intimidated. Richard Dunne talks about leaving the training field covered in bruises whenever he's had to mark the spiky 18-year-old, and Jan Vertonghen took exception to an early feeler he put out on his debut against Spurs in March. Aggression, and speed, are key parts of his game, according to those who watch him regularly.
"I block out who it is," Grego-Cox says. "It's more passion really, it's not aggression it's passion and it's a big part of my game. It doesn't matter how big they are or how old they are, I go out and play my game to the best of my ability. I didn't think the Spurs challenge was anything, I put a block in and he found it too much.
"I go with my stride. I focus on myself and my progression. When I've been called upon and been on the bench, there is a lot of pressure because if I come on there is responsibility on me personally - we're in a relegation battle, I don't want to slip up or make a mistake in the circumstances we're in. That brings pressure. But I'd rather have the chance than not."
Those chances have come more frequently since the change of manager — a big part of Les Ferdinand's vision for the future of the club and one of several reasons Harry Redknapp was always destined to hobble off into the sunset/television lights sooner rather than later.
"It's amazing to be involved in Premier League games, a dream come true," Grego-Cox says. "As soon as Chris Ramsey came in he said straight away to the youth squad 'you're all in contention, if you're playing and training as well as the first team why not?' From that moment on I thought we've all got a chance and I knew I had an opportunity.
"It's been quite a change in culture at the club from that point — from the low ages all the way through, players are moving up. There's been a definite change in attitude. At first, when we saw Darnell make his debut, progressing the way he did, it made everybody think they all have a chance. People were putting 100% in every day because they knew people were watching and they might get their chance.
"The physicality and intensity has changed quite a lot. I'm against bigger, stronger players who are more experienced. I enjoy it, the more I train with them, the more physically fit and strong I'm getting."
Grego-Cox, who says he relishes hard work and lost causes, chased at 100 miles per hour, has also caught the eyes of the Republic of Ireland junior selectors — he qualifies through grandparents. Taken to the European Championships at Under 17 level while technically still at Under 16s, he's already stepped up to the Under 19s.
"It has given me a lot of confidence being in the first team here, in my team I know I'm the only one who's played in the Premier League and it gives me confidence and makes me feel like the responsible player in the Irish team," he says. "Paul Doolin is the coach, he's similar to Steve Gallen — big on discipline, wants the team to work hard, has a structure to the game. He's always happy to put an arm around somebody and he's not the type of manager to jump down your throat - he speaks to you one on one and helps when you need it."
There's quite a mentor at Loftus Road too, with one of the club's greatest ever strikers now back running the show as director of football. Les Ferdinand has had words of advice for Reece already, and made him believe that his first team future could lie here, now, rather than through a series of loan deals as some of his youth team peers have had.
"Les gives encouragement. He spoke to me one on one at first and said be ready, we want to work with you a lot more throughout next season, don't feel that if we do sign one or two strikers like you're out of contention.
"I see my first team chances here. Anything can happen. I don't see why I can't stick around here and have a go in the first team. If I get on for five or ten minutes and score or make something happen then a career can change on that."
The Twitter @ReeceCox9, @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images