The Nowhere Men: The Unknown Story of Football's True Talent Spotters

by Michael Calvin

  ‘Jobs in youth football are becoming much more pressurised, because money is playing such a role within it. There was money in my day but my philosophy was that I only wanted people to come to me because they wanted to, not because you bought them, or you had to pay someone something. The game’s changed, in so many aspects. It’s not the game that I used to know. I don’t enjoy it so much. The job hasn’t changed, in essence, but the expectations of the parents have changed.

  ‘Unfortunately nowadays it all comes down to money. That puts a different emphasis on management, influences the way things are run. It’s the deciding factor. It makes it difficult for clubs when there are one or two prepared to pay the big money, and not only pay big money but through agents. With one thing and another, your best players are whisked away. Unless you change, you can start to be left behind. We have problems lower down in football that no one seems to worry about. I mean look at Portsmouth and Rangers. I mean Rangers!’

  This was not the last bellow of a dinosaur at an approaching meteorite that was destined to block out the sun. It was the authentic voice of football’s conscience, a fastidious man of principle attempting to prevent the erosion of everything in which he believed. Would the technocrats and barrow boys, conspiring in an irreversible change in culture, care about an old man who cared about others? I doubt it, but they are lesser men, arid characters lacking depth and humanity.

  ‘I played, but not at any level. Barnet was about the highest I got. I wasn’t the best, but I’d always give a hundred per cent. There’s a dreamer in all of us, you know. I started off in the old days as an outside right, and I can still remember one game, as plain as anything. It was over at Wanstead Flats and I was about sixteen. The ball came over from the right and I just leaned back and volleyed it in the goal. Fantastic! I can still see it now. But that was it. I never did it again. That’s why I tell my scouts, you’ve got to be careful of the one-offs, because everybody can do it, at every level.’

  It was good to see the years fall away, and the old man laugh without restraint. The void left in his life, by Pat’s death, was easy to detect. I had been told, quietly, he was fretful about my visit. He was not a man for idle conjecture or manufactured controversy. I liked him immensely, but also trusted him implicitly. I would have happily given him responsibility for my son’s welfare in a game which preys on naivety. I chanced one final question, about whether he could ever imagine a life without football. The answer was revealing:

  ‘What I like about football now is that I’m meeting people that I’ve known for thirty, forty years. And because we’ve known each other, we actually help each other. By that, I mean, someone from a lower Division club might ask if I’ve seen a centre half or a left back. I might be able to point out someone who is not Arsenal material but who would do someone a job, lower down. Likewise, they might tell me about a really good centre half they could never afford. But, to answer the question, I can imagine walking away, because I’m a walker. I love it. I will spend more time travelling the world to walk mountains.’

  I thought, at that moment, of the young man who was destined never to grow old, the daydream believer who wore the shirt displayed in the dining room. David Rocastle was once recorded talking to a group of younger players. His advice echoes down the years, from beyond the grave. He told the boys: ‘Remember who you are, what you are, and who you represent.’ Terry Murphy represents Arsenal, an imperfect institution, and football, an immodest game, with rare and unqualified distinction.

  15

  Hunger Games

  ARSENAL’S REPRESENTATIVES AT Broadhall Way, home of Stevenage Football Club, resembled hit men, diverted en route to a Mob funeral. Each was dressed casually, yet uniformly, in black. Terry Burton carried off the turtle neck look with rather more aplomb than Steve Rowley, who chose an open-necked ensemble, and sat in the back row of the main stand spooning chips into a puddle of tomato ketchup with impressive gusto.

  Burton was infinitely more approachable. We shared an interest in John Wooden, the doyen of American college basketball, whose integrity and insight into the human condition, forged as an Indiana farm boy and lavished on such iconic athletes as Magic Johnson, made him one of the most revered coaches in world sport until his death, at the age of 99, on 4 June 2010. Wooden’s conviction, that his duty was to produce rounded human beings rather than athletic automata, had unspoken relevance.

  Not for the first time, one of Wooden’s most quoted maxims – ‘It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts’ – rang true. Burton, like his friend and colleague Terry Murphy, understood the implications of the external issues complicating his work. Young footballers were becoming more precious, in both senses of the word. The night’s scouting mission had a reassuring simplicity, compared to aspects of the development cycle of many emerging players, or ballers, as they preferred to be presented.

  These social, emotional and economic issues had been placed into perspective by Liam Brady, Arsenal’s head of youth development, in an intervention which hinted at the strains which would eventually signal his determination to stand down from the role. He bemoaned the distortions of the modern celebrity culture, which turned schoolboys into trend setters and a certain type of football follower into a cyber-stalker. He pointed the finger, without equivocation, at over-exposed and over-indulged English players, without revealing what he intended to do about it:

  ‘We don’t lose many of the Italian boys or any other of the boys we bring over from abroad at a young age because of lifestyle. They’re here because they want to be footballers, and have another twenty years in the game. With a lot of the English kids, it’s a battle to get them to see it like that, to get them to take their football as seriously. That’s hard, a real challenge. Technology does us no favours in keeping players’ feet on the ground. You’ve got guys writing blogs about them, how they’re playing in the under fifteens. You’ve got our players tweeting, giving these people information about their lives, telling them what they’re up to. They think they’re celebrities.’

  Such candour was anathema to Rowley; when Mel Johnson, Liverpool’s principal scout in the South of England, introduced us, and the reason for my presence became apparent, he had the look of a startled fox and excused himself as soon as he could without causing offence. He has, to my knowledge, only ever given one extended interview, an anodyne summary of Arsenal’s philosophy which failed to offer any insight into why Tottenham and Chelsea were rumoured to be ready to pay him up to £2 million a year to defect.

  His associates were respectful of his work ethic, and in awe of his uncanny ability to find a McDonald’s burger restaurant in football outposts which barely had running water. He was wedded only to life on the road, and valued his anonymity. Yet the invasive culture to which Brady referred could not be ignored; Arsène Wenger, and by implication Rowley himself, was vulnerable to increasingly tart and unsolicited observations about the nature and effectiveness of Arsenal’s recruitment policy. The word in the tea room was that they were indecisive, over-cautious.

  Everyone knew the identity of the evening’s target, Southampton full back Luke Shaw. He was 17, and had been watched, with increasing ardour, for three years. Yet two bids had been rejected, and the sight of Rowley and Burton, in tandem, meant one of two things. Arsenal were either steeling themselves to pay silly money, or they were in danger of succumbing to paralysis by analysis. The scouts who joined them, to assess the potential of a typically callow League Cup team, were split.

  It would be several days before the ultimate irony, that Shaw was physically depleted by a virus, became apparent. Johnson, who was developing a long-distance relationship with the new regime at Anfield, quickly sensed something was wrong. ‘He’s a baby. Do we expect too much of him?’ he asked, rhetorically, as the latest product of Southampton’s Academy was uncharacteristically wasteful and ill-focused. ‘I saw him in a game against Ajax and he was at it. He looked a great modern football back. Now he looks tired, and
he’s playing tired. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve seen him do so well.’

  It was good to find Johnson so engaged. The difficulties of transition at Liverpool, under Brendan Rodgers, were being worked through; he had reignited the spark I feared had been extinguished by a worrying summer. It helped that scouting is a process of constant renewal; this was the first time he had seen Paulo Gazzaniga, perpetrator of The Save, since that afternoon in Oxford in April. Southampton had signed him from Gillingham for £1.25 million, and were emboldened by his promise. The young Argentine was trying to adapt to a new system, which involved building from the back. Flashes of his reflexive shot-stopping ability had to be balanced against the occasional positional lapse. He was a work in progress.

  James Ward Prowse, another precocious 17-year-old, diverted the scout’s attention. He reminded me of Frank Lampard; he was continually available to accept possession, and played with his head up. For someone of his youth to have such positional sense, vision and stamina was remarkable. ‘He’s the first one I’ve seen this season who looks a Liverpool player,’ said Johnson. ‘I’ve got to get a different head on, and work out what Brendan wants. He would certainly fit into the system, in that circular midfield three he likes.’

  Dean Austin, sitting two seats down, spoke from experience. ‘Brendan would be good for him,’ he said. ‘He’ll teach him tactical discipline.’ The authority with which he spoke was generated not only by his background, as Rodgers’ assistant at Watford and Reading, but also by the rigour of his approach to a game which was doing him few favours. His brevity, earnestness and realism were convincing. If Brady needed someone to remind cossetted youths of their good fortune, Austin was his man. Whenever I saw him on the circuit, and felt the force of his personality, I mentally recited another of Wooden’s homilies: ‘Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.’

  Austin had survived the summer cull, which halved Bolton’s scouting team. He was working towards his Certificate in Applied Management for Football Managers at Warwick University, and applying for management jobs, usually without response. The course, effectively a finishing school for progressive young managers such as Chris Hughton, Malky Mackay, Nigel Adkins, Chris Powell, Sean O’Driscoll and Michael Appleton, was simultaneously stimulating and frustrating, because it confirmed his readiness to make a move, if the opportunity arose. He was 42, and had the indomitable spirit of a well-adjusted 20-year-old.

  To understand where he was going, it was essential to appreciate where he had come from. Austin’s career, like that of many footballers, was an assault course. He failed to make the grade at Watford, joined St Albans City, and impressed sufficiently to earn a second chance. He was signed for Southend by Dave Webb before Terry Venables invested £375,000 in his long-term value as a combative full back. Though he spent six years at Tottenham, the club he supported as a child, and had four years at Crystal Palace, his career was blighted by serious injury.

  Austin played his final game, a 5–0 win over Telford which saved Woking from relegation from the Conference, on his 33rd birthday, 26 April 2003. He could have taken the easy option on retirement, and concentrated on a successful restaurant business in Spain, but his restlessness pushed him forward. He spent the next nine years completing his coaching badges, and fulfilled his ambition of getting his Pro Licence before he was 40. His back story explained why scouting was a means to an end:

  ‘People say to me, why scout? I look at different elements when I watch a game. I’m trying to look at it as a scout but with a coach’s eyes. I went to watch Bolton last year because I needed to know how the team functioned, so that I could find players to fit into their system. I needed to know their remit. There is no point me putting a report in on a player that I know they can’t afford. This is part of a process. If I don’t go out and watch games, how the hell is anyone going to know about me? You’ve got to have something a bit extra about you, nowadays.

  ‘I think it is key for any young coach or manager to watch games, know the players and know exactly who’s who and what’s what. The way the game is evolving financially, you’ve got to go out there, and do the graft. You’ve got to know exactly the type of player you need. OK, you’ve got your foot soldiers to come to you and say, “gaffer, I’ve got this player. You have to have a look.” You have to check it out, because you’re the one that’s ultimately accountable. If you’re not watching the games, not getting the players, what are you going to do? Blame your chief scout? You can’t do that. It’s your job, you know.

  ‘I decided I wanted to be a coach, or a manager, when I was twenty-eight. That was really through the encouragement of two people who believed in me, Terry Venables and Steve Coppell. I’ve gone through nine years of process to get my badges. I enjoy being on the grass, coaching players and helping young players. I enjoy that far more than I remember enjoying playing. But that was probably because of the injuries. They took over my life, really. From the age of twenty-four, I had eight knee operations. I broke my leg, broke my foot and had a hernia. I was popping tablets, having injections. You do what you have to do because you want to play.

  ‘I’ve had experiences that you wouldn’t believe. People don’t understand. Imagine yourself in this position: a man in his prime at twenty-seven years old gets told by a surgeon that it’s all over, finished. I was at the height of my career at Tottenham, well I should have been, but because of the injuries I was struggling. The surgeon says he is prepared to perform an operation, but it’s never been done on a professional sportsman before. He doesn’t know if it’s going to work. People like him helped save me from the depths of despair.

  ‘It was 1997. My contract at Spurs was coming to the end. My agent was trying to negotiate a new contract with Alan Sugar, who is never the easiest person to deal with, and we couldn’t agree a deal. I had a couple of clubs abroad interested in seeing me, but I went back to Spurs at the beginning of pre-season believing we’d get the contract sorted. After a week we go to Norway. In the first game I sustained this horrific knee injury. My foot basically got stuck in the ground and my cartilage severed in three.

  ‘The surgeon said to me, “we either whip the whole thing out and you’ll be done in eighteen months to two years, or I take one part of it out and staple the other bits back together and save a vast chunk of your cartilage. I know it’ll work on an everyday person, but I ain’t sure it will work on a sportsman. It could be all over anyway.” Imagine being confronted by that. You can see why players get depressed. I was in a dark place, I’ve got to say. I was in a very, very dark place.’

  Austin learned that, in football, even the bad times are good. He sustained his playing career at Palace, where his natural leadership qualities came to the fore as club captain. When the club entered administration in 1999, he liaised with corporate recovery specialists and acted as a spokesman for a dressing room which contained fretful family men. Lives were put on hold; players were up for sale, contracts could not be fulfilled and 46 staff were sacked. Austin survived to see the funny side of one of the most bizarre missionary exercises undertaken by any British football club, a two-week trip to provincial China:

  ‘Anyone who earned over sixty grand a year had to take a sixty per cent wage deferral. Eight of us did so. We all had kids, the club had no dough, and then they told us we were off to China. Virgin sponsored the trip, and they upgraded the eight players who took the hit on their money. Fourteen hours to Shanghai, and the boys are lording it. We’ve got the old beds out. The champagne is coming round and the sleep suits are on. It was absolutely the bees’ knees, but when we got there, oh my. Shanghai was unbelievably humid, playing in the Olympic stadium in Beijing was weird, but the last place we went to, Daqing, was unreal. It was about a hundred and eighty miles from Siberia, and to get there we got on this internal flight that was simply horrendous.

  ‘I’m sitting there, next to the window, and this old woman just cleared her throat and spa
t on the floor. It was just like, oh my God! Did I just see what I thought I saw? There are chickens in the aisle and a kid in front of me with no nappy, and a huge hole in the back of his trousers. I’m praying he doesn’t have the problems some of the boys are having, because the food is kicking in. The only one of us who didn’t mind it was Lee Bradbury. That was because he had been in the army and he was used to eating anything and everything to survive. Everyone else was like, no.

  ‘We got this minibus from the airport. It took about two hours to get to the hotel, and you know you’re in trouble when your itinerary says “local best”. Basically, it was the Chinese Table Tennis Institute. The rooms stank. There were fag burns on the bed, stains on the carpet, all sorts. When we walked down the corridor we saw this guy, obviously a coach, with a kid who couldn’t have been more than five or six. He looked like a little Buddha, with that little skinhead haircut. I’ve never seen a table tennis ball fly like it did over this table. The boys stood there, three or four of us. We were just in awe of this kid. The young lads were coming out of their rooms, and going “Skip, this is unbelievable.”

  ‘They told us tea would be at four. Well, we went down, and they brought out this part-cooked chicken still with the head on it. I said, “fuck this, this is enough.” I went over to Steve Coppell and the administrator and said, “gaffer, we cannot stay here. This is below human standards and the boys ain’t having it. We ain’t staying here, I’ll tell you now.” Steve’s telling me to calm down and I’m like, “No gaffer, there’s trips and there’s trips. This is a fucking hole. We ain’t staying here so you’d best find out where we can stay.” About two hours later he came to me and offered a deal.