Harry Gray is training with Leeds’ first team at 16 – how exciting is Archie’s younger brother?

“You’re Harry’s brother, aren’t you?”

When you ask people who have watched Harry Gray’s development at Leeds United’s training ground over the years, an anecdote keeps cropping up — one given weight by his elder brother Archie’s meteoric rise.

Multiple sources, who like others in this article spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, said Archie, as good as he was, would be described as “Harry’s brother” as he rose through the age groups at Leeds, despite being the older sibling. Furthermore, people meeting Archie for the first time would sometimes ask him if he was Harry’s brother.

When you now consider Archie, 18, is about to complete a maiden Premier League campaign with Tottenham Hotspur after a £40million move from Leeds last summer, it says a lot about Harry’s reputation.

Harry, 16, is making waves with Leeds’ under-21 side while he trains with a first-team squad currently leading the race for automatic promotion from the Championship.

He’s a talent who might not be a secret for much longer.

Last summer, Leeds fans suffered a devastating loss when Archie Gray moved on.

The Grays are synonymous with the club, with several members of the family having played for them since the 1960s, but the blow of that transfer to Spurs was softened by the emergence of his younger brother in pre-season.

Harry Gray, then 15, made a non-competitive senior debut in a July friendly at Yorkshire neighbours Harrogate Town and was one of five outfield youngsters chosen by manager Daniel Farke to be part of a subsequent pre-season training camp in Germany.

Whispers about Gray had been leaking from Leeds’ training ground Thorp Arch for years, about mythical 10-goals-a-game splurges, but his inclusion in the party travelling to Germany was the first public admission of the quality of player Leeds had on their hands.

Gray returned from that trip with a back problem caused by his age and growing. It was nothing major and he was managed through the subsequent months before returning to match action in Premier League 2 in mid-January. Regular minutes with the under-21s in that competition are expected over the rest of the season, but all eyes will be on when Farke gives him that senior debut.

Andy Wright was in the Leeds squad that won the 1996-97 FA Youth Cup and is now lead coach with the Yorkshire-based i2i International Soccer Academy. His professional coaching experience stretches to 12 years, but he spent six of them at the heart of Leeds’ academy. He first came across Gray in the under-10s at Thorp Arch, then watched his development more closely from under-12s to under-14s.

Of all the young talents Wright has worked with, he was asked what makes Gray stand out: “It’s his mentality. His desire to win certainly set him apart. The standards he expected for himself were always absolutely above and beyond anything else.

“How could I describe him as a player? He was just doing things you wouldn’t expect. He could win a match on his own when you probably wouldn’t expect him to do that. He would do things you’d just think, ‘Wow’. His finishing stood out, with both feet. He could beat you one-on-one, he could hold up the ball, back to goal, spin you and chip the goalkeeper. He could run in behind.

“As a coach, you try not to get too excited, you’re wondering where they’re going to end up, but this kid’s really, really special. That’s the only way I could describe him.”

Darren Arnott is currently head coach of Hong Kong’s under-20 and under-23 teams, having previously had three spells working in Leeds’ academy. Most recently, he was there from January 2023 until May last year, coaching across the under-15, under-16 and under-18 sides. He was part of the coaching staff for last season’s run to the FA Youth Cup final.

The comparison of Gray with his older brother was a natural starting point.

Arnott says: “I was fortunate to work a little bit in the past with Archie when he was younger. The boys have a very similar kind of mindset. They’re really good problem-solvers.

“(Harry) is hyper in everything. His learning style is interesting because he would be the one at the back of the group juggling a football while you make a group intervention. It could be perceived as lacking focus, but you ask him what you’ve said and he could recite it with his eyes closed. He’s hyper-intelligent. His thinking frequency is buzzing at a much higher level. He just loves challenges.”

The Gray name could be a burden for weaker minds.

For those who aren’t aware, Gray’s great-uncle, Eddie, is a Leeds United legend, having made 579 appearances and helped win numerous trophies in the 1960s and 1970s, including two domestic titles and an FA Cup. His grandfather, Frank, was a part of the club’s 1970s successes, too, playing 396 times across two spells. Harry’s father, Andy, clocked up 38 Leeds games, also in two stints. Archie got to 52 before that switch to Tottenham.

Wright says: “Even though he’ll have the pressure of the family name, that never bothers Harry. I’ve never seen a kid play with such belief and absolutely no fear. I still speak with people at the club, so I know he’s training with the first team. That won’t phase him one bit. He’ll embrace it, he’ll enjoy the challenge and he’ll really back himself as well. That self-belief is really big in Harry.”

Gray has been surrounded by football his whole life but does not seem to shy away from that.

Harry’s brother Archie playing for Spurs (Paul Harding/Getty Images)

Arnott tells an insightful story about one analysis session at Thorp Arch last season: “I remember one time he came in early for the analysis session and the analyst put the TV on to try to set the laptop up and there’s a Scottish Premiership game on.

“As the analyst was about to change the input to the HDMI, Harry went, ‘Oh, wait, they’ll score in a second. Wait, wait, wait’. They scored. I went, ‘How did you know that?’. He said, ‘I watched it seven days ago. He scores, then he gets a free kick, puts it here and he does this, does that’. It’s like an encyclopedia of football in his brain. He has a pure love for the game.”

Gray needs a challenge, his former coaches say. Not only was he pushed up the age groups to play against older opponents, but coaches had to delve deeper into their toolboxes to tap into his potential.

Bespoke training programmes were devised for him that utilised him in different ways across the under-15, under-16 and under-18 teams. With the under-18s, for example, Gray would be deployed as a single striker and asked to play off the shoulder — see less of the ball but score a hatful of goals.

With the under-15s, he may have been playing against his own age group, but the coaches wanted to make it harder for him. In last season’s Under-15 Premier League Floodlit Super Cup final, Gray was given the responsibility of the captaincy and asked to play as a No 10, dictating play as the heartbeat of the team. He was described as “exceptional” in the game by one source, though Leeds lost 5-3 to Chelsea.

“He’s not someone you would show a specific technique to,” Arnott says. “You wouldn’t try to teach him that way.

“You would challenge him by saying, ‘Hey, Harry. I saw the other day a player did this on this angle and lifted it over the ’keeper, or put it through his legs from this tight angle, or put it in the near top corner with his weak foot. That’s a great finish’.

“In half an hour, he’s trying to work it out and figure it out for himself. He does it quickly. He adapts.

“When you move him from under-15s and up, he adapts super-fast. You put him with the under-18s, he scores goals, but maybe his overall game isn’t brilliant in the first phase. Then, after a couple of games, he understands the game and it’s easy for him. You put him with the under-21s, the same thing happens. You put him in the first team, I hope and pray, the same thing happens and I imagine it will.”

The Leeds first team is where this is all ultimately leading.

Gray and his family understand the talk around him is just hype unless he delivers. His drive to succeed is evident and Thorp Arch sources say he has always been conscious of his brother Archie’s benchmarks and wants to surpass them.

The family dynamic is central to all of this. Those spoken to about the brothers can only wax lyrical about them as human beings. They have had their feet kept on the ground.

Of the boys’ father, Wright says: “How he supports them, supports their development, as a dad, that really helped the pair of them. The family behind them as well, supporting them on the journey. Andy was brilliant for them.”

Gray’s great-uncle Eddie (back row, second left) and grandfather Frank (back row, right) both played for Leeds (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

He adds: “Andy’s kept them grounded and (made them) good people. Harry has some brilliant traits as a person and as a player. It was great to get to know him, but Andy really kept their feet on the ground and when they did get a little bit ahead of themselves, he would knock them down a peg or two. I’ve certainly seen that, first-hand. The family’s got to take a lot of praise. It’s the whole Gray family, but they’ve been there and done it, really good people.”

There is a natural inclination, across youth football, to manage expectations. Experienced coaches know they are talking about impressionable teenagers. And yet, those who have worked with Gray felt it would have done the young striker a disservice to not describe him as they have done in this article. They know he’d brush off any praise.

The former Leeds, Spurs and England winger Aaron Lennon was a part of the club’s under-18 coaching staff last season. In October, Lennon told UK radio station talkSPORT of Gray: “He is ridiculous. He’s frightening. He’s a No 10, No 9. I don’t want to talk about him too much because I think everyone will want him, he’s that good. He’s probably the best I’ve seen in years.”

Lennon has played with the likes of Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane, Gareth Bale and Dimitar Berbatov, yet Arnott recalls: “I remember Aaron coming in from doing some finishing with him and he was just shaking his head, laughing, saying, ‘He finishes off his left foot as good as any senior pro I’ve seen’.”

During his aforementioned FA Youth Cup win in 1997, Wright played with and against the best young footballers in the country. He thinks Gray is on a par with those talents. “It’s the finishing that wasn’t normal for me,” he said. “His right foot’s unbelievable, but you put him on his left and he hits the ball so cleanly and it’s gone; it’s like a bullet and it’s in the back of the net.

“When I was a younger player, I played with some very, very good players. He’s better than them. The Michael Owens I’ve played with. For finishing, he’s as good as I’ve ever seen.”

(Top photo: Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images)