Demarai Gray

Demarai Remelle Gray (born 28 June 1996) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for EFL Championship club Birmingham City. Born in England, he plays for the Jamaica national team.

Gray came through the youth system of Birmingham City, for whom he made his Football League debut as a 17-year-old in October 2013. In two and a half seasons, he made 78 appearances across all competitions, including 51 starts in the Championship, and scored eight goals. He signed for Leicester City in January 2016, and was a member of their 2015–16 Premier League-winning squad. In January 2021, he joined Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen, but returned to English football in July with Everton. He joined Al-Ettifaq in September 2023.

Internationally, Gray represented his native England from under-18 to under-21 level, and was twice called up to the full England squad but did not make a debut. Eligible to play for Jamaica through family heritage, he represented them in the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup, scoring twice.

Gray was born in Birmingham, where he attended Frankley High School and played for Cadbury Athletic's junior teams. He joined Birmingham City's Academy as an under-11, and took up a two-year scholarship in July 2012. In a 2013 interview, Gray assessed his strengths as "pace, dribbling and technique", felt he needed to "score more goals", described himself in three words as "bubbly, calm and happy", and named Nathan Redmond as the biggest influence on him since joining the club.

After impressing Birmingham manager Lee Clark in training, he was named in the squad for the Championship match against Millwall on 1 October 2013, and made his senior debut as a 91st-minute substitute for Jesse Lingard in a 4–0 win. He made his first start on 2 November, in a 1–0 league defeat at home to Charlton Athletic. Gray signed his first professional contract, of two and a half years, on 9 December. Days after his inclusion together with academy teammate Reece Brown in a "Top 10 Football League stars of tomorrow" feature on the FourFourTwo website, Gray scored his first senior goal. Entering the League match at home to Blackburn Rovers on 21 April 2014 as a second-half substitute with Birmingham 4–1 down, he received a pass from Federico Macheda and shot low into the corner to score the final goal of the match. His performance over the season earned him the Academy Player of the Season award for 2013–14.

Gray performed well in 2014–15 pre-season, and the management suggested he was showing increased maturity. He started the first two matches of the season, but for the remainder of Clark's tenure as manager, Gray was used more as substitute than starter. Against Leeds United in September, he was denied a penalty and booked for diving when apparently fouled by Giuseppe Bellusci; both managers thought it the wrong decision. The following week, his first goal of the season gave Birmingham a 2–0 lead at top-of-the-table Norwich City, but he became unwell in the second half. Norwich scored while Birmingham were attempting to substitute him, and the match ended 2–2.

He made his first start under new manager Gary Rowett in the 1–0 win away to Rotherham United on 22 November, and soon established himself as the left midfielder in a 4–2–3–1 formation as Rowett regularly named an unchanged starting eleven. On his tenth league start, Gray scored three times in the first half of the match at home to Reading on 14 December, which ended 6–1. It was his first hat-trick since his under-14 days, and Rowett praised not only his clinical finishing but also his work off the ball and tracking back to cover in defence. His performances during December earned him the Football League Young Player of the Month award.

Clark had expressed concern that the club's financial difficulties would force the sale of players such as Gray, and the player was offered a two-year contract extension. A £500,000 bid from Premier League club Crystal Palace was rejected in September, scouts regularly watched the player, and media reports linked him with clubs including Liverpool, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The club turned down a series of offers, the highest reported as £5 million, from Championship club AFC Bournemouth in the January 2015 transfer window. In a statement issued when the window closed, they said that "none of [those offers] reflected the ability and potential of the player", and expressed their pleasure at having retained his services.