Big Interview: Alex Keay - fun and enjoyment is the Keay to success for Preston Grasshoppers

Whether you’re a player, coach, spectator, volunteer or member, he is eager to see that everybody connected with the club has fun and enjoyment when they head to Lightfoot Green.

The former Saracens captain – who was a mainstay of the current Premiership champions in the 1980s – believes a fun and happy environment is the key to success for Hoppers in the future.

Having witnessed, from afar, the club yo-yo between divisions in recent years – Hoppers have been both promoted and relegated twice over the past five years – Keay is aiming to strip back the club’s mentality and release the pressure valve.

"I think we have just got to focus on a couple of things,” said Keay, who was head coach of the Hoppers for much of the noughties.

“We have to focus on how much fun we are going to have and how much enjoyment we are going to have.

"I want people to come to Hoppers and think, ‘Yeah that’s brilliant, that’s a great craic and it’s good fun’.

"You can spend too much time saying that you’re going to win the league, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that.

"If everybody is together and having fun then you’re probably going to end up doing well.”

It was back in 2017 when the Hoppers dropped out of National League Two North (NL2N) under Garth Dew.

However, with new coach Paul Arnold at the helm, the Hoppers made an immediate return to the division by winning the Northern League.

A season of consolidation the year after was then followed by another relegation as a combination of a severe injury list and a Covid-19 interrupted campaign saw them drop back down again.

Arnold’s parting present before stepping down as head coach was to lead the club back to the NL2N in 2022. And while this year has been fraught with difficulty, Hoppers look on course to achieve safety under caretaker coach Dan Orwin.

After picking up just three wins from their opening 18 league games, the writing appeared to be on the wall but a narrow defeat to arch rivals and title contenders Fylde last month has galvanised the team.

Since then, they have picked up three wins out of four – including their past two fixtures.

They are now third from bottom in the table, 18 points clear of Harrogate with only a handful of games left to play.

"It’s not easy for a club like Hoppers going into these league like the NL2N,” said Keay, who was called up by England during his playing days when Dick Greenwood was coach.

"The boys have done very well, we are really pleased with the progress that has been made in the past three months – it’s been outstanding.

"If we keep playing like that, eventually we won’t be worrying about staying in this league, it will be more about going in the league above.

"We can comfortably sustain ourselves at this level and if you don’t aspire to go higher, you won’t go higher, it’s as simple as that.

"We have go to aspire to be the best semi-professional team in the area. I don’t see any reason why we can’t aspire to that.

"But the main thing for me is it doesn’t matter what league we are playing in as long as we are enjoying playing.”

Keay believes Hoppers are in a great position because of the overall structure of the club.

They have pedigree in developing talent and can list ex-England stars such Will Greenwood, Paul Grayson, Iain Balshaw and current national coach Steve Borthwick among their former players.

"We have got a phenomenal junior set-up,” said Keay, who also played for Barbarians during his time as a player.

“It’s probably the envy of the country. The mini-junior chairman Hugh Duckworth puts in an unbelievable amount of work.

"There are 90 coaches in the junior section and more than 500 players. We have got a thriving colts section.

"So the club has got a great direction of travel but what we have got to do now is create a pathway which our youngsters can progress from the juniors to the first team.

"It’s always the ideal for a club like Hoppers that the 20 or 23 players required to make a first-team squad are all Hoppers lads from being kids.

"That is probably never going to happen and we do have some great lads who didn’t play rugby at Hoppers as kids but want to play for us now.

"But if we can aspire to the ideal that every Hoppers player has worn the shirt since seven-years-old then that’s brilliant.”