Lee Gregory says he has returned to Mansfield Town having had the career he never thought he would when he first left the Stags.
The 36-year-old moved back to Field Mill after 13 years this summer on a free transfer, having been released by Championship side Sheffield Wednesday.
His opening-day goal against Barnsley was his first for Mansfield for almost 14 years, having scored on his initial debut for the club in 2010 when they were a non-league side and he was 21-year-old recruited from amateur Derbyshire club Staveley Miners Welfare.
He was on the books at Mansfield for just over a year, making only two appearances amid loan moves away, before dropping back down the non-league pyramid with a permanent move to Halifax Town.
“I was just learning my trade really,” Gregory said of his first spell at Mansfield.
“I think I came to the realisation that I wasn’t going to make it as a professional to the standard I wanted to, and I came to reason with that quite early on. But obviously things change in life and careers and it went on for the better.”
When talking to BBC East Midlands Today about his career now coming full circle at Mansfield, Gregory says it was his Stags departure for Halifax that transformed his fortunes.
“It wasn’t until I went to Halifax that I actually started to progress a bit more and a lot faster, and I think that is when I started enjoying my football the most,” Gregory said.
It was there that he played with future England striker Jamie Vardy, a forward that would go on to become a £1m non-league pick-up for Leicester City from Fleetwood in 2012.
Gregory leapt up the second tier two years later, joining Millwall – where he scored 64 goals in 204 league appearances over five years.
Spells at Stoke City and Derby County followed before he moved to Sheffield Wednesday, a club he helped to promotion to the Championship with 11 goals in his last campaign in League One in 2022-23.
Gregory went to to score in Wednesday’s season opener last term, but after October he played only a further minute of football for the Owls.
“It was frustrating, but looking back at it now I had a great career at Sheffield Wednesday and loved it,” Gregory said.
“The last six months just put a downer on it, but I’m out of that now and I’m looking forward. It’s just one of those things that happens in football, you just have to dust yourself off and go again, and I’m happy to he here.”
It was when Gregory was frozen out of the Owls squad that Mansfield boss Nigel Clough first tried to sign the striker last winter.
“It didn’t come off, but I knew he was interested and once the season was finished it was just a phone call from my agent to the gaffer here,” Gregory said.
“When I came and spoke to him [Clough] this was a place I wanted to come back to. He told me what he wanted to do, how he wanted to play, and it suits me perfect.”