Greg Draper has played football in four different countries, won countless honours and picked up two golden boots in his playing career but he has just secured himself a place in the history of The New Saints.
Draper has set a new record of scoring the most of goals in the history of the club, which was was founded in 1959, when his third, of his fifth, at Flint Town United saw him eclipse Michael Wilde’s tally of 153 goals in The Saints’ 10-0 win.
“It’s very special, it’s probably not something that I even imagined possible when I signed for the club,” said Draper.
“When you sign for any club you don’t really think you’ll be there for ten years later but, here I am and 158 goals later and it’s been a great nine and a half years.
“I’m really proud of the achievement, it’s taken a little bit longer than I would have liked.
“Obviously, with everything going on this year it’s taken longer than I would have liked but it’s just nice to finally get there and get it off my mind.
“It had started to get to me a little bit with it dragging on but it’s nice to get there and now to concentrate on scoring as many as possible, to be honest.”
Scott Ruscoe, who has been with TNS on and off since February 2002, first as player for 14 years before coming back to the club as manager in 2017, was full of praise for Draper.
“Obviously it’s a great milestone to reach. For himself, for his teammates, he’s been a great servant. He has been there a long time now and Greg and TNS, they both go well together hand-in-hand,” he said.
“To get the record when there has been so many good forward players at the club is a pleasing thing for Greg. I am chuffed to bits for getting it but hopefully more goals to come from him as well.
“If you look at the goals he’s scored and the games he’s played in, I know some people might say “Why isn’t Greg Draper starting every game, why hasn’t Greg Draper been playing every game?”
It is obviously competition for places, there are lots and lots of different things, my point of view as the manager.
“There are some games he’s ideal to start, other ones he’s ideal to come off the bench.
“It’s massive, to have someone like him consistently up there with either golden boot, in and around it, fighting challenging on that front year in, year out.
“It’s not just happened all of a sudden, it’s every season where he gives you great value and either high number of assists or a large number of goals.”
But what makes the New Zealand international so special.
Ruscoe added: “You talk about a team player, but also a hunger to score goals. Not everyone has it in them, he’s got a desire to score as many as possible.
“He’s one of the old school, as in a real number nine, you don’t really see Greg Draper as a wide forward, a midfielder, he is a number nine.
In this modern-day era for these forwards playing in a wide position, he’s a focal point, you play it into him, he gets hold of it but as soon as he sets someone else for a cross or whatever, he’s there in the box wanting to score goals.
“He’s got a good touch, the amount of goals he gets inside the six yard box because he’s always in there and he’s always going to get chances.
He’ll be the first to admit in games where he gets two, three goals, he should have gotten five or six.
“He’s been pivotal to what we’ve done and again, what a squad player to have over the years he’s been consistently performing, and he has never ever let the club.”
But how has Draper become the club’s all-time goalscorer and where has he come from?
It was growing up in Chard, Somerset where Draper first picked up a football at the age of 10.
But two years later he was told by his parents they were emigrating to Christchurch in New Zealand.
“I was very close to putting a stop to that move with me having just started secondary school in Somerset and Mum and Dad sort of told me we were moving to New Zealand,” recalled Draper.
“I just kicked off massively to be honest cause I’d just settled in and didn’t want to change, didn’t want to start a new school.
“Mum and Dad said they were very close to pulling the pin on it all so lucky for me and lucky for my family that they went through with it and it’s all come from there.”
Draper joined Canterbury United soon after arriving in New Zealand before spells with Wellington Phoenix, Melbourne Knights, Team Wellington and Basingstoke Town followed before moving to The New Saints in 2011.
“When I was younger, I moved away from home, lived away from Mum and Dad at 18 to play full time football to play in Wellington for the Phoenix in the A-League, so that was another daunting experience really, one that I wasn’t sure about.
“I like being in my comfort zone a bit so doing that helped and two years later I moved across to Australia to Melbourne where I didn’t really know anyone.
“I didn’t have any family, moving to a whole new place when I was 19/20 on my own, was a great experience, wasn’t a great year in terms of football, didn’t score that many goals, the team didn’t have that much success.
“Being away out of my comfort zone was very good for me, probably what I needed at that time, went back to NZ for a year and then yeah, came across to have a season at Basingstoke.
“So I think having all that moving around a lot when I was younger on my own definitely brought me out of my comfort zone.
“After doing that for four or five year it was nice to sort of come to TNS. You don’t imagine you’re going to settle down for this long but I think it’s nice it’s worked out that way.”
The one time capped international was also called up by the national side to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.which he names as one of his biggest achievements alongside TNS winning 27 games in a row in 2016-17.
In their second match with Belgium, Draper swapped shirts with Anthony Vanden Borre, who played in the Premier League with Portsmouth and went on to win 28 caps for the national side.
“He was a good player at the time, me and a few of the lads used to play Championship Manager at the time and he was one of the host prospects, that we were all after his shirt and I was lucky.
“I stood next to him at the final whistle and I grabbed his shirt, which annoyed a few of the lads, but that was nice,” added Draper.
“I’ve probably achieved more than I ever thought I was going to achieve. Going to the Olympics, obviously a dream come true.
“The Under 20’s World Cup when we went to Canada in 2007 with the New Zealand U’20s, that was a great tournament, so obviously New Zealand has given me so many opportunities, so probably shaped my career.
“If my mum and dad hadn’t moved to New Zealand when I was 12 then I probably wouldn’t have achieved as much as I would have, and the success that’s come with it so obviously a lot of it is with Mum and Dad making that move to New Zealand.”
But it is his time with The New Saints where Draper has mostly enjoyed his football.
In his nine years with the North Wales side he has won nine league titles, five Welsh Cups and four Welsh League Cups, including being named in the Cymru Premier twice, in 2011-12 and 2017-18, the same year he picked up the Golden Boot, before winning it again a season later.
“He’s won a lot of trophies at TNS, not just the league, the league cup, in Europe, scoring in Europe and now he’s got this record,” said Ruscoe.
“it’s magnificent. You look back at your career, what have you done, how high have you played?
“We’re always measured in terms of what we’ve done, what legacy we leave behind when we’re finished because football is a ruthless profession but it’s about what have you done, what is your legacy for younger players, for new players, for everyone at this football club.
“He can go and say I’ve got this record, this many trophies, these many goals, this many seasons, it’s brilliant. To pass that on to children, and grandkids when he’s a bit older, it’s vital to look back and say that “I was a good in my prime”, goalscoring is what he’s about and that’s why you’ve got the record and why he’s so eager to score more goals.”
Having moved around a lot in his late teens and early 20s, Draper now feels at home and has called being with TNS the “most enjoyable nine years” of his football career.”
He added: “Wherever I’ve been before this I’ve never had so much fun. You just go into training every day and all you do is just laugh really.
“Some of the lads we’ve got in this team, especially some of the ones who’ve been here for nine years with Chris Marriott, Paul Harrison, I’m really close with him.
“You go into a room with Chris Marriott and you just laugh, he’s a bit of a club clown. It’s just a great place to go, there’s nothing you don’t look forward to going into training every day.
“You have so much fun I think it just naturally brings that success, you’re in such a positive mood all the time. A lot of the success is down to keeping the same players year after year.
“You look at some of these clubs and they’ve just got no chance going into the season because they’ve let 11 or 12 players go from last season, bring another 11 or 12 players in, you’ve got to let them settle down.
“I think for years of success, we’ve only just let two, three players go, two, three players in, so it’s a constant fluidity going year after year where we’re all on the same page all having a great time, obviously that success has shown on the pitch as well.”
And Ruscoe says he would “massively” rate him amongst the best to play for the team in their 61-year history.
“You look at the center-forwards, not just the center-forwards, first and foremost he’s a player for TNS so where does he sit with everyone else that’s played with the club.
“He sits close to the top of anyone who has ever played at the football club. I’ve got a few players in my head who are major driving forces behind the success of the football club.
“I’m not going to discuss them with you because they’re personal to me but he’ll be certainly up there with the ones I’ve got in mind and a reason why TNS have been so successful.”
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