Crawley Town unveil John Gregory

JOHN GREGORY has returned to football management as new boss of League One club Crawley Town.

The six-time England midfielder has a lengthy managerial CV but has been out of work since having his contract with Kazakh club FC Kairat terminated in December 2011.

Gregory first moved into management in 1989 when he took over at Portsmouth.

However, his stay with Pompey was a brief one and he took over as Plymouth’s caretaker the following year.

That stint lasted just a few months before Gregory joined the coaching staff at Leicester City and later Aston Villa.

He returned to first-team management with Wycombe Wanderers in 1996 and used the Chairboys as a stepping stone prior to taking the reins at Aston Villa in February 1998.

Gregory led Villa to qualification for the UEFA Cup in 1997/98 and enjoyed a successful spell with them, which saw an FA Cup final appearance and top-half finishes in the Premier League.

In 2002 he moved to Derby County but was sacked for alleged misconduct the following year. He later won £1m for unfair dismissal but the lawsuit kept him from management until 2006 when he was appointed by Queens Park Rangers.

Rangers sacked him a year later and that proved to be his last managerial job in England until this week.

Over the course of the past six years, Gregory has managed Israeli clubs Maccabi Ahi Nazareth, whom he got relegated, and F.C. Ashdod, as well as his most recent post in Kazakhstan.

He’s now looking forward to life in charge of an English club and told the Crawley Town website: “I’m delighted to be here, back in English football at a club who have made tremendous progress over the last three years.

“When I met the directors I was impressed by their ambition to keep on moving Crawley Town forward.

“You can’t stand still in football and the potential at this club is enormous. We have got a good squad of players and I have every confidence that they can challenge for the play-offs.

“You have to aim high and I’m really looking forward to getting on the training ground with the players and kicking on.”