Greg Hurst: Rising back up from the brink

As the calendar rolled into 2019, Greg Hurst’s future in the game that he has loved since childhood was in doubt.

“It got to the point where me and the club [St Johnstone] decided that it probably wasn’t going to work out for me there,” Hurst said. “I took a little break, went part-time, wasn’t sure if I was going to keep playing football. I was at probably the lowest point in my career.”

The Scot had been kicking a ball around since he was three or four years old. A few years down the line, he attended his first professional match, between Rangers and Aberdeen at Ibrox.

Hurst admits he does not have the best recollection, though he still recalls just how much of an impact the atmosphere had on him.

“I kind of knew, watching that, that’s the kind of thing I want to do with my life,” he said. “I want to go and play professionally.”

Hurst grew up in Dunblane. It’s a small Scottish town, known to most as the hometown of tennis star Andy Murray or as the site of the U.K.’s deadliest mass shooting a year before Hurst’s birth.

That’s the town in which he got his start in the game. He played for the local club in small-sided games before top-flight Falkirk’s youth set-up snapped him up. With the Bairns, he’d reach as high as the under 16s before suffering his first real setback.

“I got released for being too small, which at the time, we couldn’t believe that was an excuse,” Hurst recalled.

Instead, the forward joined Stirling Albion, a club closer to his home.

During that time, Hurst was a boy with many hats. He spent his days in school, his evenings at training and other hours working at a butcher’s shop in his hometown; a role that he now says helped bring him out of his shy shell.

It was there at his workplace that he received a call from English Premier League club Everton offering him the chance to train with the side.

“That was a great experience, getting to see people like [Romelu] Lukaku, [Kevin] Mirallas, Tim Howard every other day,” Hurst said. “It was special, just seeing the facilities that they had. I learned a lot in those three weeks.”

Ultimately though, Everton didn’t offer him a contract.

“They said that one day I could be really good, the next day not as good,” Hurst said. “Just compared to the players that were there since they were six, seven years old, they had that consistency. I went there from training two or three times a week max, to playing with players who’d done double sessions every day for the last three, four years.”

Hurst signed with St Johnstone instead, a club then plying its trade in the top flight of Scottish football. He made his Scottish Premier League debut, still in his teens, away to Aberdeen. Hurst was then sent on a series of loans over the following seasons.

“I understand the loan system, especially the first couple because I was young,” he said. “I start off in League Two, go and get experience, become a man, learn to play against older men.

“Then, after the second and third one, I wasn’t really enjoying it as much. I felt like I deserved more of a chance with the first team. I felt like every time I came on for St Johnstone, I’d done well, but obviously that’s just football. That’s how it goes.”

At the age of 21, Hurst left St Johnstone in the January transfer window. He headed down the leagues to part-timers Stenhousemuir.

“I just thought I either start fresh somewhere new, or can I just play part-time and try and get a job,” Hurst said. “Luckily enough, the club that I went to part-time, a guy there knew a coach over here in Chattanooga. I thought there wasn’t a better fresh start than going to a different continent where no one knows who you are and trying to work my way up the ranks there.”

Hurst linked up with the Chattanooga Red Wolves in USL League One in summer 2019. That was both the team and the league’s first season, something he said was a key factor in joining.

But moving to a different country came with challenges and adjustments. Those adjustments ranged from increased travel distances — anything more than four hours on a bus was a shock — to broader cultural changes.

“It’s just totally different,” Hurst said. “Not in a bad way, obviously, I love it over here. I’m really glad that I came over, but there’s just so many different things.

“It was nice to be part of a soccer club as well because you have so many different internationals, and people just live life differently. More than anything, I’ve probably grown as a person coming over here, broadening the horizons and seeing how different things work.”

After two seasons in Tennessee where he proved his goal scoring ability, Hurst found himself on the move yet again. This time, it was to a title contender in Union Omaha.

Through the 2021 season, Hurst led the side in goal scoring. He ultimately led the team to both the regular season and playoff titles.

“It didn’t hit me for a few days, but when it did, it hit me pretty hard,” Hurst said. “When everybody kind of realized what we’d done, it was just such a great feeling.”

As happens often in the closed U.S. soccer landscape, a league title meant time for top players to move on. One of the team’s stars in Evan Conway left for San Diego while Hurst headed for Phoenix.

Instead of a chance to prove themselves at the next level, Omaha’s prize was the gutting of its most successful squad.

“A lot of us spoke about that, even after playing Phoenix in the preseason and winning both games,” Hurst said. “There was a real buzz around us. We thought if you’d put us in the [USL] Championship, we’d definitely compete.

“A lot of the players, especially the ones that have played in the U.K. or Europe that are used to promotion and relegation, felt like the club deserved to go up and have the chance to challenge in the Championship because of what we’d done that year. Obviously, a few boys moving on to the Championship proved that there were players good enough to do it. It would have been nice to see that team try and compete in the Championship, but that’s just the way it is.”

Instead, he’ll be trading in his old teammates for copious amounts of sunscreen.

“Yeah, I’m going to need quite a lot of that actually,” Hurst said, laughing. “I was quite lucky in Omaha I didn’t have to have too much, but yeah, I’ll probably be buying in bulk for the foreseeable future.”

He isn’t unaware of the challenges beyond the weather. Namely: a crowd with high expectations that has been treated to some of the league’s best attacking players.

“I said last week that no one says no to Phoenix, and I feel like that’s true,” Hurst said. “I mean, it’s such a big club with a good history. They’re trying to go to the right place, and constantly looking forward and trying to be better.

“I wanted to take that next step into the Championship and go and challenge myself, try something new and go and prove myself and prove that I belong to be at that level.”

Three years after that low point, Hurst wouldn’t change the path that he took into the professional game, despite having thought about pursuing an athletic scholarship back in his youth days in Scotland.

“I don’t regret the way I went through it,” Hurst said. “Being able to be a professional at 16, 17 years old helps so much. Some kids come out of college here 21, 22 and they’re the same age as me, but they’ve only had one or two years as a professional.

“I think that’s probably the main difference, just the experience you gain from being in a professional environment when you’re younger. You’re in and around and learning off guys that have been at the top for a long time when you’re 16. Obviously, you can’t do that in college.”

Instead, Hurst is looking forward.

“My goal is to stay here [in the U.S.] and try and get to the highest level possible,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, but I don’t see why people should come over and settle for playing at whatever level.

“I always wanted to be at the highest level of wherever I played. That’s why I think coming to Phoenix was the biggest move for me so far in my career. To play for such a big club, I’m just really excited for the opportunity it gives me.”

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