Andre Gray has learnt plenty of lessons in his life so far but none more important than when he was stabbed in a nightclub incident less than four years ago.

The 23-year old was playing for Conference club Hinckley United in December 2011 when he found himself outside a club in Wolverhampton. Gray was stabbed in the face in the fracas which he says he cannot even remember.

Now, however, the former Shrewsbury Town youngster finds himself on the verge of playing Premier League football with Brentford who meet Middlesbrough in the play-off semi-finals, starting at Griffin Park on Frida night.

Of his experiences, Gray said: "When I was younger and I was at Shrewsbury I was getting into trouble and things like that.

"You start to see people fall away from you and things don't go your way and that opened my eyes a lot. Getting the right people around me made a massive difference.

"I was worse when I was a kid in gangs and stuff like that. I started to grow out of it a lot. But I was in clubs with the wrong crowd who were still in bad trouble with other people. Sometimes it's hard when they're your friends to get away from it.

"The scar is a result of where I was at when I was getting into trouble. I got stabbed. I didn't deserve it but I was putting myself in certain situations where it was bound to happen. It was in the street after a club kind of thing. It was the wrong place, wrong time.

"I didn't feel it at all. The adrenaline - I didn't even know it happened. I woke up the next day and instead of dwelling on it and thinking, 'Oh my God, I've got a big scar on my face', I thought it could have been my eye or my neck. It could have been a lot worse.

"It made me get up and get on with it. I had to take it on the chin and move on with my life. And I haven't looked back since then.

"It made me grow as a person. It's part of where I was from and part of my life but it's behind me. Since then I haven't looked back."