The older man was examining body shape, the probabilities of genetic inheritance. ‘Look at Elliot Lee – Rob’s son. Chip off the old block, isn’t he? But a big arse. Not an athlete.’ Few words were wasted, and judgements were harsh: ‘Look at the goalkeepers. One’s a great size, but a coward. The other’s a great shot stopper but too small. Their mistakes prey on your mind.’
I was struck by Chelsea’s Todd Kane, a full back in the modern idiom. He was strong, adventurous and aggressive, and his delivery from wide areas caused problems. ‘He could have a career, him. My first thought is Brentford. He’s a Nicky Shorey type. He does what it says on the tin. Problem is his size – can’t see him defending at the far post at top level. He’ll be a proper pro though.’
There was logic to Johnson’s caution, borne out of 27 years’ experience. ‘The window of opportunity isn’t open for long, and they’re out there flicking and farting around. It is a cruel world. They have only one chance to impress. There are too many games, too many players, to spend long on them. When you are working for Liverpool, a lot of the time you are crossing names off your list.’
Islam Feruz, a small support striker blessed with extreme pace, earned a reprieve by scoring a goal of sublime quality. He picked up the ball midway in the opposition half, surged past four challenges into the heart of the penalty area, and dinked a shot over the advancing West Ham goalkeeper. ‘Blimey!’ exclaimed Johnson. ‘Didn’t see that coming. That was Diego Maradona.’
Feruz was a child of his times. The only son in a family of Somalian refugees which relocated to Glasgow after fleeing to London from Tanzania, he was saved from deportation, at the age of 12, by the advocacy of Celtic’s youth coach, the late Tommy Burns. He made his first team debut at the age of 14, in a memorial match for Burns, a man of immense integrity in a game of shallow expedience.
Within 18 months, Chelsea had taken advantage of a loophole in the system to spirit him south. Conscious of competition from Manchester City, they installed the family in a flat near their Cobham training ground. The boy was reportedly being paid £10,000 a month, and had his own website, which proclaimed: ‘Islam Feruz will be famous.’ Wotte, who might have been expected to be a little more circumspect, promptly compared him to Romario.
With five minutes remaining, and the scores level at 2–2, most of the scouts had seen enough. Only Anderson stayed to witness Chelsea’s win, on penalties, after the game had ended 3–3 after extra time. ‘What have I got to go home to?’ he said with a mischievous smile. ‘I’ll be here helping them sweep up.’ He would make himself busy, networking with agents, parents and coaches. He could talk for England, but, crucially, he was a good listener. He, too, worked a room, like a bee collecting pollen.
Johnson scurried to his car, in the company of Steve McCall, Ipswich’s chief scout. His small talk – ‘that Nat Chalobah, he’s got Chelsea-itis. Got all the tools, but a laid-back Larry’ – was tellingly deceptive. It was several months before he revealed he had logged the defender’s speed of thought, intelligent movement and ease on the ball. He recommended him, as the putative holding midfield player Liverpool were seeking.
Johnson had been taken to Anfield by Damien Comolli, with whom he worked, as chief scout, for Tottenham. He recruited Gareth Bale from Southampton, but was a victim of regime change under Harry Redknapp. It was the first time he had been ‘moved on’ since he began scouting, as a self-confessed ‘football fanatic’, in 1985. The following year, on Good Friday, he recommended Norwich City sign an 11-year-old midfield player he had spotted playing for Ridgeway Rovers in the Canaries Cup.
David Beckham was duly invited for trials at Carrow Road, but joined Tottenham’s School of Excellence before Manchester United, and corporate canonisation, beckoned. Since Leyton Orient, the boy’s local club, were also unfulfilled suitors at that time, there was an appropriate symmetry to Johnson’s next tutorial, an Under 19 international between England and the Czech Republic at Brisbane Road.
Johnson parked in the terraced streets surrounding the ground, and popped into a newsagent to buy a local paper. ‘Everyone canes me for it, even Damien,’ he said, with a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘But I always buy one for the titbits. You never know what you’ll find out.’ He returned to his car, and studied the Czech squad on his iPad for an hour, before he entered the Olympic Suite, 35 minutes from kick-off.
The scouts were devouring ham and mustard sandwiches, with the obligatory chips, as they retold tall tales of ducking and diving. My favourite revealed the ingenuity and duplicity of one solid citizen, who monitored youth football for Portsmouth, did first team match assessments for Newcastle United, and covered non-League football for Wolverhampton Wanderers. All three clubs were ignorant of his involvement with the others.
Johnson preferred the company of Tottenham coach Clive Allen. ‘He was good to me at Spurs,’ he explained. ‘He kept phoning to see how I was after they outed me. You don’t forget things like that.’ They discussed striker Harry Kane. He was excelling on loan at Millwall, whose manager Kenny Jackett had worked with Johnson at Watford and QPR. The one doubt, about his pace at the highest level, was neutralised by memories of Teddy Sheringham, a player whose game intelligence compensated for a slight lack of speed.
‘I love this place,’ Johnson reflected, as we looked out on to a museum piece, the deserted old main stand. ‘The fans are the funniest around. I was here once when they started chanting “we can see you washing up” at the inhabitants of the flats in the corner. It’s a proper club, with some great people.’ Memories of the old John Chiedozie tea bar, and the fabled eccentricity of former manager John Sitton, stirred a smile.
Stuart Pearce, who was to make a cameo appearance as England caretaker manager against Holland at Wembley the following night, nodded as he bustled past with his retinue. Johnson had talked football with him the previous week, in Jackett’s office at the Den, but his perspective shifted suddenly, as the teams, and his sheet of A4, came out. ‘We know the England boys so well,’ he rationalised. ‘This is my chance to look at the Czechs. They’ve beaten some top sides.’ He quickly concentrated on goalkeeper Lukas Zima, a tall, slightly built fashion victim in tangerine kit, and predominantly orange boots. All that remained was for him to address the error of my ways.
‘Don’t look at the game, look at the man,’ Johnson instructed. ‘You are following play just like the coaches who come out with me. Scouts study their man. I blank the other players out, although if the ball is at the other end of the pitch I’ll watch out of the corner of my eye, just in case I get asked for an opinion. You cannot follow the ball in this job.’
I felt self-conscious at first, but it was simple, and startlingly effective. Watching Zima so intensely had a strange intimacy. He morphed from an unknown name on a team sheet to a definable human being. His mannerisms became familiar, and the complexities of his character emerged. He unwittingly evoked sympathy and understanding. Johnson was enthused: ‘Look at him. Good concentration. Keeps communicating. Attention to detail. He’s alert, thinking. A good size. I like him. I like his bravery. He’s been out at people’s feet a couple of times. I know he punches, but all the foreign ones do, especially at youth level.’
As he spoke, England broke quickly from an ill-judged Czech attack. Harry Kane chested the ball down inside his own half, fed Ross Barkley on the right, and sprinted to receive a return ball on the edge of the penalty area before scoring with a low shot into the corner. Johnson spoke with proprietorial authority and concern: ‘There was nothing the keeper could do. He’s got nothing in front of him. That Celtic boy, the left-sided centre half, is struggling for his life. It’s not the keeper’s fault they keep getting caught out by balls over the top.’
The consensus at half-time was that the Czechs were ‘crap’. Lil Fuccillo, Luton’s technical director, was telling anyone who would listen: ‘it’s Barça this, Barça that. I’m getting sick of it. We’ve got to play to our strengths in this country.’ Rather than enli
st in the Bedfordshire branch of the Flat Earth Society, Johnson gravitated towards Dave Holden, the veteran Arsenal scout, who was instrumental in the recruitment of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
There was an easy rapport between the pair – ‘not a lot out there is there?’ – and each knew not to read too much into the small talk. They strayed beyond the immediacy of the match, to engage in a discussion about the best culture in which to inculcate young players. Holden, a former school teacher who had retained a broad Geordie accent, insisted: ‘Players recognise the best players. They’ll have a young one in the group if they see something in him. Players also challenge coaches. They know if the coach isn’t good enough, the outstanding player in the group will regress to the level of the others.’
The gossip was global. Jaap Stam was making a positive impact as Manchester United’s Brazilian scout, and was pushing hard for Dede, the Vasco da Gama central defender. Barcelona had taken out first options on 39 young players at Boca Juniors. Glenn Roeder, the former Newcastle manager, had been added to Aston Villa’s scouting staff. By the time the litany of opportunity was complete, the second half was underway.
We were joined by Anderson, Liverpool’s youth scout, who exclaimed ‘there’s our boy again!’ when Todd Kane delivered a cross on the run that enabled Chelsea colleague Patrick Bamford to extend England’s lead with a stooping header. Johnson’s other duty involved monitoring winger Nathan Redmond, who was introduced as a substitute, midway through the half. ‘Watch him,’ he counselled. ‘He won’t really be trying. He’ll be more worried about playing for Birmingham on Saturday, and in the Cup replay against Chelsea next week.’ Sure enough, Redmond was measured, to the point of indolence. He contributed little, apart from a languid flick and brief bursts of pace in insignificant areas. Another early departure was entirely excusable.
Again, Johnson had rationed his intelligence. No one had detected his interest in the goalkeeper. ‘The trick in this game is never to let people know what you are thinking, or how you are working. There are plenty out there happy to feed off your knowledge.’ His report on Zima, who had been signed by Genoa from Slavia Prague, was on the Anfield system by 2 a.m., with a recommendation that he be watched by Liverpool’s Italian scout.
It was one of 200 such reports, submitted that week. Whether it would receive the attention it deserved was another matter entirely.
2
Billy’s Boys
THE WHIFF OF cordite was disguised by the sweet scent of fresh lilies, which saturated the lobby at the Melwood training ground, where an honour guard of men in late middle age cradled scrapbooks sanctified by the scrawl of superstars and superannuated underachievers. A bronze bust and an inscription, set in polished granite and extending from floor to ceiling, demanded due homage to the heroic contradictions of Liverpool Football Club.
The inscription read: ‘Above all, I would like to be remembered as a man who was selfless, who strove and worried so that others could share the glory, and who built up a family of people who could hold their heads up high and say: “We are Liverpool”.’ It was signed, in spidery copperplate, ‘Billy Shankly’.
Behind the façade of unanimity, that family was dysfunctional. It appeared divided by doomed romanticism, emotional incontinence and institutionalised ignorance. The football club which enshrined the socialist philosophies of the Ayrshire mining community that shaped Shankly’s character now existed only in the imagination of its followers. It was, like Nye Bevan’s NHS, an unsustainable ideal, a relic of cultural change.
Social circumstances were forbidding. Merseyside was a predictable prisoner of recession. A derelict site, opposite the entrance where the men congregated on a bright, cold day, was boarded up. Melwood was protected by three strands of barbed wire, stretched above walls consisting of rectangular slabs of pre-stressed concrete. Pallid, three-storey blocks of flats, the residue of 1960s planning policies, had signs relaying the bleak message: ‘Ball games prohibited.’
Mel Johnson visited infrequently, but understood the dynamics of the situation. He respected manager Kenny Dalglish, and revered the doctrines of the Anfield Boot Room. Yet he represented modernity, and the influence of Sporting Director Damien Comolli, whose 4 a.m. emails signalled the start of many working days. ‘Damien expects you to work as hard as he does,’ said Johnson. ‘That means you have to be prepared for silly hours, and silly trips, but you want to do as well as you can for the fella.’
This was not a universal consideration. Comolli has been seen as a polarising figure. Though knowledgeable and discerning, he was accused of overstating his influence at Arsenal. He recruited well at Tottenham, but had a difficult relationship with manager Martin Jol. He had his critics at Saint Etienne, a club riven by internal politics. However, Liverpool’s new American owners were convinced by the authenticity of his links to Billy Beane, the patron saint of Moneyball, whom he had first met as a student. The fault lines between tradition and innovation were widening, imperceptibly, but inevitably.
Moneyball was a game changer for a certain type of owner, enticed into English football by the commercial potential of its globalisation. They wished to match Beane’s success, in turning the Oakland Athletics into baseball’s most conspicuous overachievers through a novel recruitment strategy based upon the analysis of previously unconsidered statistics, and the defiance of conventional wisdom. Comolli was in on the deal, long before Hollywood turned Michael Lewis’ book, which gave the analytic movement its brand name, into a vehicle for Brad Pitt.
Comolli was waiting at the head of the open-plan stairs which led to the inner sanctum. His chameleon qualities were immediately apparent: his suit matched the corporate grey of the landing carpet, and his open-necked striped shirt, offset by Paul Smith cufflinks, was expensively mundane. Here was a self-contained man, accustomed to revealing as little as possible of himself. His overriding instinct involved placing everything in the context of past achievement, rather than unsubstantiated or inconvenient opinion.
His office reflected his character and lifestyle. A carry-on suitcase in the corner testified to his recent schedule: he had returned from Europe that morning, after watching six matches in five countries in the previous five days. There were few signs of human warmth, apart from two small family photographs, taken on a beach holiday, but hidden behind an incongruous, commemorative football. A French book, Le But (‘The Goal’), sat on a coffee table before a plush leather sofa. A framed copy of the two-page press release announcing his arrival at Anfield was on the wall. The Academy Performance Plan, 2012–13, nestled at the top of a neatly stacked in-tray.
He wore his authority well. He exercised strategic control of Liverpool’s recruitment policy, and organised a weekly conference call involving six key figures in recruitment. Domestic policy was carried out by Johnson, in the South of England, and Alan Harper, the former Everton midfield player, in the North. Steve Hitchen, based in Le Mans, had a global role, which included responsibility for a network of European scouts. Academy recruitment was overseen by Frank McParland and Stuart Webber, supported by David Moss, the former Luton winger. All had their own networks of scouts, contacts and informants.
Comolli spoke in a Eurodrawl which had eerie similarities to that of former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier. He explained: ‘It is a mix of being humble enough to say I don’t know everything and I can be wrong, and being self-confident enough to be comfortable with the decision I am going to make. It is a balance. That is something I took from my experience at Spurs. At one point I isolated myself too much from the scouting staff. I wasn’t listening sufficiently. That is a mistake I won’t make again. In the end you are the one who is going to be responsible. You are the one who is going to get criticism. You have to have thick skin. But I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t care what is said about me. People need to understand that when we make a decision on the successful player we go through the same process with a player who is a failure. There could be ten thousand reasons he went wro
ng, and one reason why the other player went right. The professionalism, the way we look at it, is exactly the same, whether it is a failure or a success.
‘There are no rules in scouting because you are dealing with human beings. Emotional intelligence is very important, but it is not the only thing you need. It is a business which challenges everything about you. We review our system every six months. Have we got the right strategy in place? Have we got the right people? Do we need to adjust? What about the type of players we are looking at? Is our coverage in South America good enough? Is our coverage in Asia good enough? Everybody works differently. You have directors of football who don’t travel to games, but I do, and I watch a lot of games on video. I am at the very end of the process. It is very pre-remedial.
‘The local scout sees a player: either he says “I am convinced” or “I would like to have another opinion.” Then someone else goes. If it is abroad it is Steve. If Steve tells me “I am convinced” I go to watch, and decide. Sometimes he says “I want you to look.” I don’t think trust is the whole thing, but it is part of it. If Mel goes to see a player that three other scouts are recommending, and I think he is good enough, but Mel tells me he isn’t, I will listen to him, and understand why. It is about challenge, and being challenged. Talking to Arsene, he said to me a fantastic thing: “The more I am in football the less I understand it.” And that is Arsene Wenger. So who am I, you know, not to be humble? I cannot afford not to show humility. It is impossible. I can only talk about football, but that is probably true of successful people in any sphere.’
The Nowhere Men: The Unknown Story of Football's True Talent Spotters Page 2