‘It is far too simplistic to say the scout with flat cap and muffler has no part in a more technological era. I have an open mind, and will embrace new ideas if they add to our knowledge base, but I am there to find players, not to be a technical wizard. The first opinion I form when I go to a game is usually fairly accurate. It is an intuitive thing. I get sent a lot of DVDs, but they are mainly an encouragement to get out there, and see the player live.
‘Value goes in cycles and scouting, like football itself, follows trends. Fifteen years ago we all flooded Scandinavia, in search of a bargain. Manchester United got Ronnie Johnsen and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer out of Norway. Bolton were successful in Finland and Iceland, with Jussi Jaaskelainen and Eidur Gudjohnsen. Then we went to Europe to look for holding midfield players; the prototype was Michael Essien. I watched him at Bastia and Lyon.
‘Everyone is now all over France and Spain. There’s still value in Eastern Europe; a lot of clubs are starting to scout extensively in Poland. Udinese are very successful in South America but in general terms the biggest clubs, the Champions League clubs with the biggest budgets, have the biggest reach.’
Football might have infinite possibilities, but footballers are finite entities. Chester’s relationship with Norwich chief executive David McNally, established when they worked together at Fulham, gives him greater influence than many of his peers. He has developed a professional sense of detachment, so that he can utter the fateful words: ‘go and find a new home’ to a player whose purpose has been served.
‘Ultimately it is my job to recommend players. The manager makes the decision, and the chief executive closes the deal. If I can be helpful, by investigating the parameters of a potential agreement, I do so. I can instigate deals and if we want to move a player on, I would have enough clout to contact other clubs, to see if they are interested.
‘Human nature being as it is, you need man management skills. Some players suspect you of having a decisive input into the decision to let them go, others are more philosophical. I try to help a player get the best possible move, but I am also selfish enough to know that my principal responsibility is to remove him from the wage bill. It is as clinical as that. My job is to generate as much money as I can for the club.
‘In football you need to be strong-minded. There are more downs than ups. We’ve all been sacked at one point or another. When that happens, you go on to autopilot, waiting for the next chance. You feel it when you are on the outside, looking in. You miss that sense of involvement on game day. Enjoy it, because it doesn’t last for ever.’
13
The Road to Perdition
FULHAM’S HUMAN RESOURCES department despaired of Barry Simmonds. The club’s chief scout had taken four days off in four and a half years, and showed little inclination to respond to their suggestions that he should restore his work–life balance. They shared the communal shock when, one summer’s morning, as torrential rain swept across the training ground in the South-west London suburb of Motspur Park, he decided he needed time and distance to gather his thoughts.
On impulse, Simmonds called a travel agent, with instructions to find the first flight to ‘somewhere hot’. By that evening he was nursing a beer in a beachfront bar in Alicante. He had given himself a three-day break, though the battery life on his two mobiles would be tested as thoroughly as ever. He could stay in touch, and take stock. Pavel Viktorovich Pogrebnyak was still on his mind.
‘I know, I know,’ he said, through quiet, self-deprecating laughter. ‘I am the saddest person. We move on, but this was a tough one. I am a cog in a wheel. I do everything I can, but if a decision is made above my head I just have to condition myself to the reality of it. Scouting is art, science, timing and mood. You can’t let it get to you. It is difficult to live this life if you are not even-tempered. You see injustices and it can flip you over very quickly.’
It was a testing time. Clint Dempsey was agitating for a move, which would take him to Tottenham instead of Liverpool, as originally envisaged, hours before the transfer window closed at the end of August. Simmonds’ fears that Fulham would be unable to retain Mousa Dembele were in the process of being realised. The European Championships were of limited value; he knew the players, and had organised a video scouting service, augmented by performance analysis. Those scouts who chose the alternative, £1,000-a-night hotel rooms and supposed VIP seats amongst the fans behind the goals, picked up little more than carefully slanted gossip.
It is not the recurring sense of betrayal which saps the spirit, or the butchery of a system that sells footballers like slabs of sirloin. It is the insistent whisper of the scout’s inner voice, which struggles to be heard above the cacophony of conjecture, neediness and posturing. It asks a series of stark questions about relevance and respect. The answers can be intimidating.
The loss of Pogrebnyak, on a Bosman free transfer to Reading, hurt. The Russian was straight from central casting, an archetypal action movie villain, blond and blessed with a parchment-pale face which soaked up emotion. He was Dolph Lundgren in Adidas Predator boots. His muscularity was emphasised by skin-tight shirts, and even his nickname, ‘The Cellar’, had an ominous ring to it. Simmonds, though, had spent three years getting to know the man.
Simmonds had first heard the buzz about him when he played alongside Andrey Arshavin for Zenit St Petersburg. Fulham manager Martin Jol tried to sign him for Hamburg, at that time. Pogrebnyak held the ball up well, and, despite intermittent injury, developed his all-round game when he moved to Stuttgart, in 2009. He was Simmonds’ principal target the following year, when the Bundesliga club staged its mid-winter training camp in Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast of south-western Turkey.
It was the perfect place for a busman’s holiday. The resort, Turkey’s biggest, has 300 grass pitches. It attracts clubs from Germany, Belgium, Holland, Russia and the Ukraine. When Simmonds was in town, it also hosted teams from Japan, China, South Korea, Kenya and Brazil. Football created its own subculture, in which scouts, coaches, agents and journalists collided gently, amicably. The training sessions were open, and the informality was instructive.
Recruitment is an intuitive process. Simmonds turned down one player whose mother-in-law had him on speed dial, because he sensed the dangers of external pressure on someone with a submissive personality. He has the authority to make decisions on loaning players, and matches personalities with club profiles. He had attempted to ferret for clues about Pogrebnyak’s character:
‘The stats wouldn’t tell you he is a player, but you knew you were looking at one when you watched him in the Bundesliga. In Antalya I basically stalked him for four days, watching everything he was doing. One thing, a small incident, stood out. He tried a shot which went spinning into orbit, way behind the goal. They had two old boys there, whose job was to collect the balls. He saw them turn to go and fetch his shot, and stopped them. He waved them away and got his ball himself. It was a simple, selfless act. Very respectful. That taught me a lot about him.
‘It was the same soon after he signed for us. I watched him in the canteen one day, after training. He carefully put his knife and fork down on to his plate, and carried it to the ladies serving behind the counter, so it could be washed up and put away. The other players, who let others do the menial stuff, got on to him about that, so he soon changed. But it told me a little bit extra about his character.’
So much for behavioural psychology. Simmonds was confronted by a classic clash between nature and nurture. Pogrebnyak had been in the Russian system since the age of six, when he enrolled at the Spartak Moscow school. He survived a season in Siberia, with Tom Tomsk. Like many of those emerging in post-Soviet society, he was conditioned to making materialistic judgements. His six goals in 12 games on loan to Fulham towards the end of the 2011–12 season were hard currency. Simmonds fretted as a three-year contract remained unsigned.
Scouting, like everything in football, reflects the cycle of boom and bust. Reading had decimated their sco
uting structure after relegation to the Championship in 2008. They had rebuilt it, in preparation for a return to the Premier League. Steve Head, who had been overseeing opposition scouting for Fulham, was their new head of scouting and recruitment. His inside knowledge was important but the drive of new owner Anton Zingarevich was decisive. When he visited Russia’s training base during the European Championships, Simmonds knew the game was up:
‘In my experience, as chief scout, it is your job to ensure the CEO or manager is not surprised by anything in the transfer process. You can’t allow anything to trip them up. You get them as much information as possible. My due diligence on a player has to go beyond whether he can head or kick a ball. But when a Russian owner meets a Russian player with an agent who specialises in the Russian market you know you’re in trouble.
‘Your strategy has to be fluid, because of certain factors, like a change of coach, owner or status. But there are very few secrets out there. We live in a YouTube generation. People are everywhere. Drive, say, three hours outside Prague, and you will get to some cement stadium in the middle of nowhere. There will be eighteen clubs there, on the off-chance.
‘It takes a special arrangement with the owner, CEO and head of recruitment to facilitate progress. Clubs live from hour to hour, not even from day to day. It can take so little time to completely destroy the work of six weeks, six months or six years. It’s football’s way. Things can change so quickly.’
Pogrebnyak duly joined Reading on a four-year contract, estimated to be worth anywhere between £45,000 and £65,000 a week. He received a seven-figure signing-on fee, thought by some to be close to £5 million. Dr Oliver Wendt, a Hamburg-based agent on the periphery of the deal, surprised absolutely no one when he admitted money was a determining factor. Simmonds understood the rules of the game: ‘We all move on to the next one.’
Fulham had a frantic but successful window, despite high-profile departures. Dimitar Berbatov, perhaps the only footballer who could get away with playing in white tie and tails, signed from Manchester United for £5 million, despite being courted by Fiorentina and Juventus. Strikers Mladen Petric and Hugo Rodallega were signed as free agents after leaving Hamburg and Wigan respectively. Former Real Madrid midfield player Mahamadou Diarra committed himself to a permanent contract, Iranian winger Ashkan Dejagah signed from Wolfsburg, and full back Sascha Reither agreed to a season’s loan following Cologne’s relegation.
‘It was what I call a player recruitment window, rather than a scouting window. You don’t need much scouting for players of that quality and reputation. We had a few get away, but we all have our fisherman’s tales. Everyone has their running order of potential recruits, but it is ultimately determined by external forces and sources. That’s why it is such a game of cat and mouse. Some clubs try and do their business early, but it is the English way to get the deals done in the last few hours.
‘You never really know what is going on at other clubs. You don’t know about the constraints so it is difficult to make judgements. For instance, the club might have a wonderful academy, but never produce a player because of internal politics. I am chief scout, but every club has specific duties regardless of the similarity of the title. We all get our coats on, and get out there and watch games, but I have more of a sporting director type of role, in that my key alliance is with the CEO, Alistair Mackintosh.’
The inclusive culture fostered by Mackintosh, who arrived from Manchester City in the summer of 2008, suited someone of Simmonds’ diverse background and innovative nature. In addition to scouting, he had managed in New Zealand, coached in non-league football and operated as managing director of Darlington before he joined Fulham.
His philosophy was summarised by a favourite phrase: ‘The brightest gold is found in the murkiest rivers.’ To prove the point, he had recruited Canadian striker Alen Marcina from Puerto Rico and Gao Leilei from China while in charge of New Zealand Knights, in the Australian A League.
Simmonds was inventive, tireless. He hosted a biannual scouting conference at Craven Cottage, and insisted each scout watch the Fulham first team, so they could benchmark regulars against potential signings. They took turns to liaise with directors, who were designated as a ‘scout host’ for each home game. He compiled a weekly scouting summary, in a magazine format, for senior management and board members, with detailed assessments and updates of principal targets.
‘What the chief executive has done is promote and support the ethos that just because you are not based at the training ground it doesn’t mean you’re not part of the club. We can’t afford to think of our scouts as Occasional Al. We promote the idea that they should talk to one another. A lot of people ask me “are you fucking mad?” and tell me that encourages them to talk about me behind my back. That just shows you the level of insecurity in the game.
‘You have got to be more concerned about getting it right than getting it wrong. You can’t afford to worry about the labels put on players when you pay a lot of money for them. Money has always been integral to the process. In 1925, Arsenal advertised in the Athletic News for a new manager. It stressed that the successful applicant would be expected to build a team, and not pay exorbitant fees. What was one of the first things Herbert Chapman did when they appointed him? Break the transfer record by paying Bolton ten grand for David Jack.’
Simmonds introduced the notion of ‘stealth scouting’, playing matches, featuring targeted players, on a video loop on a centrally situated screen in the office he shared with the coaching staff. The desks were close together, and signs of haste, half-empty coffee cups and scrawled session plans, were conspicuous amongst the common room clutter. His response to the inevitable teasing from the coaches about his belief in subliminal messaging – ‘your work keeps me in work’ – was predictable, shameless and entirely acceptable.
Satellite feeds ensured he had access to every French League game by Sunday evening: ‘Everton were one of the first clubs to latch on to the possibilities. They had those big old satellite dishes at the training ground. It looked like Jodrell Bank. When I arrived at Fulham the only database we had was hand-written reports, in position order, in a filing cabinet.’
He insisted his scouts stay in hotels after night games: ‘I’m not having one of mine driving his Mondeo up and down the motorways, past midnight, with only a Ginsters pie for company. I want them to feel valued. If they are family men, I try to ensure they are at home for the big holidays, like Christmas and Easter. If anyone needs to be on the way to Gatwick at five a.m., it’s me.’
Tales from the trenches kept everyone entertained. Simmonds ‘cried for four days’ after being tear-gassed by riot police at a Paris St Germain match. A favourite fixture was the Athens derby between Olympiakos and Panathinaikos: ‘Some bright spark in the marketing department decided to put a DVD of highlights of twenty years’ worth of derby games on every seat. Fine, until some poor soul had to take a corner. He was pelted with about twenty thousand DVDs. Mad, absolutely mad.’
On this particular afternoon, when the muffled dramas of a development match against Aston Villa filtered through to the coffee station of a modern dining room, he was in the midst of another road trip. He had just spent three days in Turkey, where he took in four games, and assessed players with development potential. He was due to leave for a European scouts meeting in Holland, which he intended to use as a base for a swing through France, Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany.
‘We have this concept of legacy scouting, where we look for players with medium- to long-term value for the club, irrespective of who the manager or head coach is. Mousa Dembele is a good example of a legacy player. We purchased him, even though Roy Hodgson didn’t fancy him when he was manager here.
‘I have tremendous respect for Roy as a man, and as a football man. The way he was treated when he became England manager was disgusting. I have learned so much from him, but when he goes into one it is best to let him go. He has got a temper on him. Managers are ridiculo
usly stretched, but I’d managed to get him to spend a rare night off in Holland, watching Mousa play for AZ Alkmaar against Roda JC. They used him as a winger.
‘Roy was soon on the phone, and what he didn’t call me wasn’t worth knowing. He basically accused me of wasting his time. When his anger had blown itself out, I explained I saw Mousa playing through the middle, not as a wide man. Roy had obviously had enough. “No chance,” he said. It was only later, when he was managing Liverpool, that he called, and said, “you were right weren’t you?”
Hodgson was, with Bobby Moore, Malcolm Allison, Harry Redknapp and John Cartwright, one of the men Simmonds regarded as ‘life mentors’. He had put him through his preliminary coaching badge when he was 16, though he was meant to be 18, and was a source of consistent advice, as well as occasional admonition. His failure to make the grade as a player at Crystal Palace was a blessing in disguise:
‘I was always interested in coaching. Malcolm Allison and John Cartwright at Palace used to let me be a nuisance. They saw I was hungry for the game. I was very fortunate to meet Bobby Moore, through Harry Redknapp, so early. I was on an FA course with him and he ended up taking me to Oxford City. He recommended me as youth team coach at Fulham. I was twenty-three, and also did the reserves, but in hindsight it was too much too soon.
‘I always wanted to coach and travel. My first manager’s job was in Nelson, on the South Island of New Zealand. It was part time, but we trained each day from four p.m. to six p.m. I asked the club to improve the lights, because it was so dingy, but there was no money. One of the directors, a sheep farmer, came up with an alternative solution. He painted the goalposts in luminous paint, and also dipped the balls in it, in the way he dipped sheep.
The Nowhere Men: The Unknown Story of Football's True Talent Spotters Page 19