OTD: WILL GRIGG BORN
- BY BEN THIRKELL
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
On this day in 1991, former Sunderland striker Will Grigg was born in Solihull. Despite paying a large fee (for a League One transfer) to bring him in, he was a complete flop and scored just eight goals in 62 games.
Grigg started off at non-League Stratford Town in the Midlands Alliance League, where an impressive campaign in the 2007/08 season saw him offered a scholarship at Walsall. He barely featured in his first two seasons at the Bescot Stadium, however more regular game time came during the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons. It wasn't his most productive era though as he scored just four goals in both seasons each.
The following year saw Grigg properly kick on though, netting 19 goals in League One, picking up the clubs Player of the Season and Players’ Player of the Season awards.
He caught the attention of Brentford, moving to Griffin Park in the summer of 2013. He was far from a success in West London, with a positive loan spell at Milton Keynes Dons during the 2014/15 season, including a brace against Manchester United in the League Cup, leading to his move to Wigan Athletic where he really made a name for himself.
Grigg scored 25 goals for The Tics, helping them to promotion from League One and earning himself a place on the plane with Northern Ireland for Euro 2016. It was around this time when Wigan fan Sean Kennedy uploaded a YouTube video with the title ‘Will Grigg’s on Fire’. The song went viral and made Grigg a bit of a sensation in football purely because of it. Videos of Northern Ireland fans singing it whilst at the Euros were everywhere despite the striker not playing a single minute at the tournament.
Back at Wigan, Grigg struggled at Championship level scoring just five times in the league as they were immediately relegated back to the third tier. Following this was a 19-goal season which helped them win the title to make an immediate return to the second tier. He also scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the FA Cup fifth round, providing another key performance for an underdog against one of the biggest clubs in the country.
Then came the 2018/19 season. After struggling again in the Championship, the January window saw him linked with a move to Wearside. Many thought this would be a good signing if the price was right. ‘Sunderland Til I Die’ showcased the absolute farse that was Deadline Day, where we witnessed Stewart Donald panic buy the striker for a ridiculous £3 million. For context, Wilson Isidor reportedly cost us just £2 million more. On his first home appearance he rounded the goalkeeper only to put it wide which all but summed up how his Sunderland career would go. He would score just eight goals on Wearside before leaving in the summer of 2022 for MK Dons. He told Wigan Today in 2020, bare in mind he was still contracted to us at the time, “I absolutely loved my time at Wigan and, in hindsight, I probably should not have moved”. He was a player that just never seemed happy here and for the price we paid was always going to be judged harshly. In the end it definitely is not harsh to say he was a huge failure at the club.
He currently plays for League Two outfit Chesterfield under former Wigan boss Paul Cook.
