Test matches still capture goalkeeper's imagination

PASSION FOR SPORT: EMMET MALONEhears why Bohemians goalkeeper Matt Gregg reckoned he was once 'a bit like Freddie'

THE GAMES come thick and fast in the League of Ireland at this time of year and no club could claim to have more on the line as the campaign edges towards its final phase than defending champions Bohemians.

Maintaining the focus of players is of critical importance and Pat Fenlon is as good as anyone at it. Still, his number two goalkeeper, Matt Gregg, might have one eye on events at The Oval during the countdown to Friday night’s game against Galway United.

Gregg, a 30-year-old who grabbed a few headlines at one stage last season when he hit a late equaliser for UCD against Cobh Ramblers, has been living in or around Dublin for the best part of a decade now but he was born in Cheltenham and played cricket for Gloucestershire as he progressed through the underage ranks until being obliged to make a choice as to what sport he was going to concentrate on.

“In fact, there was rugby as well,” he recalls now. “I played all three to quite a high level at that stage but I suppose the choice was between the football and cricket. Rugby was amateur then and cricket seemed to offer less opportunity to make a living so when Torquay offered me a full-time place in their YTS (Youth Training Scheme) I decided to take it.”

The decision may have made sense from a career perspective but his father, Steve, a keen cricket fan and a coach himself in the county set-up, made his disapproval fairly public.

“Yeah,” says Gregg, “there was actually an article in the local paper with him saying how disappointed he was. It actually upset me a bit at the time.”

A few years later, after Gregg had broken into the Torquay first team and then had brief spells at Crystal Palace, Swansea and Exeter, he moved to Ireland and joined up with Bray Wanderers. Cricket became the focus for trips back home with he and his father linking up for matches and, on one occasion two and a half years ago, heading off to Australia for a chunk of an Ashes tour.

“I used to try to make a point of getting to at least one Test match each summer but it has become harder of late and I haven’t managed it at all this summer,” he says.

He played a bit in his early days here too although limits on foreign players aimed at preventing clubs beefing up their first teams with more than one overseas professional limited his opportunities to the reserve teams.

“At the time there was a quota system so I didn’t get to play at as high a level as I would have liked. I always enjoyed playing, though, and had some good days. He was, he reckons, something of a fast bowler and batsman; “a bit like Freddie,” he laughs and recalls “hitting 197 for Phoenix at Terenure, that was my best.”

The switch to summer football made life more difficult and the opportunities to keep up his second sport dwindled almost to nothing.

Outside of his professional duties, Gregg also runs a specialist goalkeeping school, just4keepers.ie, which, in addition to having a couple of young kids (Jack, nine, and Zara, six), pretty much accounts for any spare time.

“Jack loves the game and is always trying to drag me out the front to play a bit. Zara likes it too. Really, though, I have to settle for watching it on television whenever I get the chance now.

“It’s funny, Irish people seem to love cricket, they’re just very slow to tell other people how much they love it.

“When the Irish team was doing well in the World Cup a couple of years ago you could see the level of interest there was and even with the 20-20, people were into it.

“Around Bohemians there’s certainly a big interest. The former manager, Stephen Kenny, is a big fan of it and so is Dermot O’Neill, a fair few of the fans are into it too.”

“He’ll happily sit and watch the game in pretty much any of its forms but his preference is still for the Test-match variety and he’ll be looking to keep an eye on how the conclusion of the Ashes series pans out over the next few days in London.

“It’s difficult to get the time to sit down and watch it but when you do it’s so relaxing. The game itself, though, is so hard in its way. One of the things I like most about it is that you can be so far on top and still find it impossible to grind out the victory. It’s not just about scoring as many runs as you can the way it is in the shorter games.”

How much he’ll get to see of the fifth Test after Friday’s game is anyone’s guess but if England bounce back from the hammering at Headingly there might well be an exciting few days of action to distract him from the day job.