On 24 May 2009, Gary Alexander scored one of the greatest goals in Wembley history for Millwall in the League One play-off final.

In fact, he scored twice that day, but the Lions ultimately lost 3-2 to Scunthorpe United. And that was the start of a torrid year for the striker.

He played 12 of the first 14 games as Kenny Jackett’s side looked to bounce back straight away but scored just once. Then an injury kept him out of action between 25 October and 16 April.

“To be honest, no one could really work out what it was,” Alexander begins.

“I had plantar fasciitis and it created a bone spur in my foot, so every time I put my heel down, it felt like my heel was coming off. It was one of the worst pains I've ever had, but no one would operate.

“Eventually somebody did operate and it cleared it up and I was able to make the play-off final, but I didn't come on the year we went up, unfortunately.”

Steve Morison had come in and scored 20 goals on the way to promotion, alongside Neil Harris, and the pair would be the men to lead the line in the first season back in the Championship since 2005/06.

“The manager was honest with me. He said I could stay and fight for my place or move on,” he adds.

“I wanted to play games as I was told I might have to retire after the op I'd had and I'm not someone to sit on a bench or not to play anyway. My dream was to be a footballer - I wanted to play as many games as possible.

“Had I not missed most of the season I would have probably stayed, but I had the chance to move to a new club and start a fresh challenge after a year out.”

Brentford signed Alexander for an undisclosed fee in August 2010, with the striker penning a two-year deal at Griffin Park.

“I’ve been after him for a few years,” said Andy Scott when the deal was announced.

The move reunited Alexander and Scott, who had been team-mates at Leyton Orient in 2003/04 and 2004/05.

“He was a winger back in the day, so obviously we had our ups and downs - and if he wasn’t crossing the ball, I’d have the hump with him! But he was the gaffer now, so it was a different respect," he continues.

“Managers will say what they want you to hear when you go to sign for a club, but I trusted Scotty and there were plans for the club. With Matthew Benham in charge, you knew the club was only on the up.”

Alexander was in the starting XI from the start and scored against Walsall in his second league game, as well as the equaliser in the Carling Cup game against Everton that forced the famous victorious penalty shoot-out.

He formed a ‘little and large’ partnership with Charlie MacDonald, too, which had been many years in the making.

“I've known Charlie a long time as he’s from south London as well, and to come across to somewhere where you already know players always makes it that little bit easier to settle in,” Alexander says.

“He was a Bermondsey boy and I was from Elephant and Castle, but our paths crossed and we'd end up playing football together in parks or in different areas we'd play each other and things like that.

“We became better mates as our careers went on, but we knew each other and knew what we wanted to do in life, and luckily enough, we both went on to do that.

“Charlie was a workhorse. I worked hard as well, but if you're working up there with someone who works equally as hard, then it takes a little bit of the load off you.

“Charlie's not the biggest but he was very good in the air, so I could go off him, he could go off me and I think we linked up pretty well when we played together, when we had the opportunities.”

In the final months of that first season – in which he scored 12 goals and provided three assists in all competitions - Alexander captained the Bees for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy final at Wembley, with Kevin O’Connor named only on the bench by Scott’s successor Nicky Forster.

It’s a day he looks back on with mixed feelings.

“Kev had captained the club for many years so, out of respect, I went and spoke to him and said the manager had made his decision, as hard as it was," Alexander reveals.

“It was a tough one because I got on really well with Kev and I'm sure Kev would have loved to have captained his team at Wembley.

“Did we deserve to lose that game? I'm not sure. Jeffrey Schlupp was on loan at the time and he could have squared one to me but, being a youngster, he went for goal to try and take a bit of glory and it wasn't to be. I might have missed anyway, though.

“Even though we lost, it was just a proud moment for me to captain a team as big as Brentford at Wembley.”

Alexander missed most of September and October 2011 through injury, but in the 24 League One games he played up to 6 March 2012, he scored another 12 goals and provided two assists.

Factoring in the two goals he scored in the JPT, he had already bettered his return from the previous season.

Then he joined Crawley on loan on 8 March. A permanent summer transfer was agreed there and then, abruptly ending his stay in west London.

Speaking about the situation 13 years on, he gives his side of the story.

“I was called in to meet Mark Warburton and the gaffer at a hotel in Brentford. They put a contract in front of me which cut my wages by 50 per cent," the former striker explains.

“Perhaps I would have taken a pay cut if I’d been offered two years. But they said, ‘Play 20 games next season and you'll get your second year’. I was experienced and I’d seen it many times; you get to 19 and all of a sudden, you're moved out.

“I said, unless they came up with a deal I wanted, and the two years, I wouldn’t be signing, and the time would come when it would upset people, and I’d leave. It wasn't like I was a centre-forward who'd not scored a goal.

“I actually moved to Crawley for less money than I was on at Brentford; it was about security and taking care of my family, having a two-year contract. Hopefully all the rumours that I left for money can be put to bed now.

“It wasn't the case and I didn't leave the way I wanted to leave. I didn't want to leave, but my family comes first. Our careers don't last forever and we don't earn enough money to be able to quit at the end of it."

He adds: “It hurts because I love Brentford as a club. I enjoyed my time there. I'd like to think we had good times and it was the start of something. I scored plenty of goals there, which was nice. But to suddenly leave is never good.

“It was difficult because I built up relationships with a lot of people. We had one hell of a squad there and it's difficult to walk away from a squad like that because you know it's going to achieve stuff. But from a personal point of view, it didn't sit right and it didn't show me that they wanted me, if I'm being honest.

“It wasn't Uwe’s [Rösler] decision in terms of contract offers because other people were involved. He whispered in my ear when I played against Brentford, ‘I'd probably have done the same’.”

Alexander won promotion from League Two with Crawley that season and, after two years at Broadfield Stadium, retired from professional football at the age of 34 in 2014, following a spell at Burton.

Living in a hotel, away from his family, helped him make the decision. “I look back and think I probably went too early. I probably regret that,” he concedes, however.

He was convinced to join Greenwich Borough shortly afterwards, though, first as a player, then as player-manager. Without the pressures that come with professional football, he spent three years there, even dropping back to play as a central defender when required.

Spells in charge of Ashford United, Glebe and Cray Wanderers followed, but the death of his father during the Covid pandemic accelerated his final exit from the game in 2022. “He was everywhere with me, so that was difficult. My head wasn’t in it,” he says.

So came a complete career change – Alexander became head of sales for electric car company Stratstone BYD in Mayfair. And since he left that role last year, he and a friend have been preparing to for the launch of their own chauffeur company.

Football is no longer a job, but something he can enjoy, especially with son George having scored 24 goals for Eastbourne Borough in the 2024/25 season, spearheading the East Sussex club’s run to the National League South play-off semi-final.

With a new challenge ahead, there are no regrets now.

“It’s nice to be able to go and watch and just enjoy instead of having the pressures of being a manager,” he concludes.

“Even in non-league, it’s 24 hours and it takes over your life, so it’s probably better I’m out of it!”