Andre Gray’s new tattoo took nine eight-hour sessions to have inked on to his back, but has been three years in the making.

Even the briefest of glances at his back tells you that his tattoo is no ordinary Premier League footballer’s fashion accessory. Muhammad Ali and Bob Marley sit alongside images of Rosa Parks, Marcus Garvey, the Black Panthers and Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who famously protested at the Mexico Olympics. All are inspirations for Watford's record signing after he first started reading up on the African-American civil rights movement.

Unsurprisingly, the tattoo provoked a huge and varied response after Gray posted a picture of it on Twitter last week, but the 26 year-old is clearly extremely well versed in the pictures and slogans that he has chosen to have permanently imprinted.

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“The civil rights movement is something I’ve looked into a lot,” said Gray. “When I was about 23, I started reading up on it all and watching TV programmes. You find you read about one person and then you find there is a documentary you can watch about them and then it usually leads on to something else.”

Asked to pick out one of the figures who has become of particular interest to him, Gray replied: “Marcus Garvey. He was the first person to really start trying to fight back and fight for equal rights. Most interesting for me, he created a ship, which is on the tattoo as well, to take African Americans back to Africa from other countries.

“He was the one a lot of other famous civil rights activists looked up to and he had Jamaican heritage as well, like me, so it was really interesting for me. Then you start watching videos on YouTube and all these other people pop up and you learn more and more.”

Andre Gray has had his back inked with icon figures of the African-American civil rights movement credit: GEOFF PUGH

Other than reading up and watching videos on civil rights, Gray also took time out during his summer holiday to try to educate himself further before making an £18.5 million move from Burnley to Watford.

“I went to Zanzibar on holiday and there was a lot there about civil rights and there was a museum, where there are old slave chambers,” he said. “It was horrible to go to and they’ve still got the chains there. It opens your eyes a lot. To go to Africa and see some of those things was pretty difficult, but it makes you think.”

Thinking and learning are two things Gray has done a lot of during his rise from non-League football and gang culture that he is sure would have resulted in him going to prison if he had not moved away from Wolverhampton.

He was stabbed in the face during a night out in 2011 and last season served a ban after homophobic tweets he posted in 2012 came to light just after the striker had scored his first Premier League goal against Liverpool.

“I had changed a long time before the tweets were exposed,” said Gray. “I couldn’t even imagine I would have written them because they don’t represent the person I am now. I didn’t know they were there, I thought they were fake.”

credit: GEOFF PUGH

Gray, who joined Luton Town from Hinckley United in March 2012, added: “The best thing that happened to me was going to Luton and being able to get away from it all and not be in the position to be dragged back into anything in terms of getting into trouble with the police.

“I try not to think about where I would be now if I had stayed in Wolverhampton. Jail. That’s the way I would have seen it. It was just part and parcel of where I grew up and the lifestyle I was in. I’ve got one friend that hasn’t been to jail - it was just normal and it’s not seen as a massive thing. It’s part of life where I’m from.”

Gray has been the recipient of racist abuse during his career and admitted that his first instinct used to be to fight. But reading the stories of Smith and Carlos, who silently protested while collecting their gold and bronze medals in the Mexico Olympics, has taught him there are other ways to react.

“Yeah 100 per cent and that is why the picture of the Olympians was a big piece that I really wanted to get on the tattoo,” said Gray. “There was also the Australian guy [Peter Norman] who stood with them and supported them, and that was a massive moment. He got a lot of stick and hate for it, but it showed somebody in the limelight could stand up and help change things. It’s something you have to do when you are in that position.”

Andre Gray in action for Watford credit: GETTY IMAGES

Gray is still waiting for his first Watford goal, but the team has made a superb start to the season and are unbeaten in the Premier League ahead of Saturday’s game against Manchester City at Vicarage Road.

Squaring up to Sergio Aguero is not something Gray could have envisaged five years ago, when the Argentine scored the goal that clinched City’s first top-flight title for 44 years.

“I watched it in a pub with my friends in Wolverhampton,” said Gray. “I think I had been at Luton in the Conference and the season had already finished. I’d have never believed you if you’d have told me I would be sharing a pitch with Aguero, that’s crazy.

“It’s hard to see yourself in the Premier League when you are in the Conference because the jump is so high. When I was there nobody had done it. Jamie Vardy got his move to Leicester, but that was in the Championship so the Premier League seemed like a very long way away.

“The boys at Luton used to tell me I would get a move and people said I’d play in the Premier League, but I found it laughable. I just thought ‘how can you say that?’ You know yourself how good you are, but you are playing in non-League and it’s hard to believe.”