The Nowhere Men (23 page)

Resentment scarred the landscape. The implementation of the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan at the start of the 2012-13 season prompted clubs in Brighton’s newly enlarged catchment area of South-East London to treat visiting scouts with suspicion and ill-concealed contempt. At Crystal Palace’s training ground, scouts attending youth matches were herded into a small, clearly defined area, and accompanied to the toilet by stewards to prevent them stealing away to speak to parents. At Charlton they were corralled in a ball court, away from the pitch, and forced to watch through a mesh fence.

‘It has become very difficult, very personal. People want to make it as hard as possible for you to do your job. You are left outside, waiting, and are not allowed in before the whistle goes. They watch you as if you are some sort of criminal. You are taken into the stand, if there is one, and are followed everywhere. Once the final whistle goes you are marched out again. It is a very unpleasant experience.

‘Look. I pride myself on my reputation. I work within the rules and consider myself a professional. I see some people cutting corners, but I do things the right way. I tell clubs, “I am not here to nick your players. But, if one of the better boys becomes available, give me an option, let me be in the race.”

‘Our best kids are highlighted by others. I’m not stupid enough to deny that. But we give them the best environment possible. We are creating a good model. There is an element of being out of the firing line down here, but we are going to be judged on the number of players who progress through the system. I know there is a lot of envy about. One of the worst things about football is the number of people who want to see you fail.’

Anderson was developing a scouting network, which included Jason Halsey, who had been released by Bolton. He was embedding the club in local schools, ensuring the effectiveness of 20 teachers, employed on a part-time basis to provide an early warning system for the best talent. Consistency and continuity were crucial; scouts were involved in technical meetings with first team manager Gus Poyet, whose broader influence was signalled by the presence of young Spanish coaches, such as Gerard Nus, a protégé of Rafa Benitez, in the academy.

James Baxter, who had spent six years at Southampton, was responsible for nurturing boys as young as six at pre-academy talent centres: ‘If you go to an inner city club the kids are more streetwise. I’ve seen boys in the under nines at a London club turn up, on their own, in a black cab. You have to be attuned to the kid’s welfare. We are producing technical dots, boys who, in terms of physicality, can be caught out. In the longer term they will flourish.’

Barry Lloyd was deployed in the search for undervalued or underdeveloped talent in the 17–19 age group. Murray Jones, lead development coach for boys between the ages of 12 and 16, was another of Anderson’s key points of contact. He was worldly-wise and politically astute, the legacy of working in three of the better academies, at Crystal Palace, Reading and Fulham, over 14 years. Brighton had particular problems, in the demographic of the boys they recruited, but obvious opportunities:

‘We had a lot of naturally talented boys at Crystal Palace, but there was a different culture there. Here the boys come from a middle-class environment. Parents tend to be more supportive, but it is natural to question whether their sons have the hunger of those kids from a working-class background, who see football as a way out, and up.

‘Football isn’t immune to social change. It is interesting how talent is beginning to dry up in Northern Ireland, which is a traditional hotbed, and how people are quite content to ignore areas like Sussex. Hardly any clubs have scouts down here. Arsenal have a guy, but he doesn’t even have a car. There is no real point in worrying about losing players. We’re a big club. Why can’t we nick a kid from Chelsea?

‘We’re trying to change the coaching culture so that it is creative and inspirational, but we can only do so much. We can be the best in the business, as coaches, but we need raw material to work with. The bottom line is we all need the old school scout, in the cheese cutter hat, who stands on the touchline and writes it all down on the back of a fag packet. They’ve got my respect. They’ve put the time in. They know this business inside out.’

Anderson, who signalled his intentions by signing former Chelsea defender Rohan Ince on an 18 month development contract, appreciated the mechanics of power. Managers are creatures of habit; they develop tight professional networks which demand discretion and unconditional loyalty. They tend to sign players with whom they have worked, and rely on agents with whom they have done business. Senior scouts, trusted confidants, are part of the inner circle. Those left behind, in the chaos of transition, are exposed.

‘It is a lot safer in the youth system, though you are still vulnerable from the ripple effect,’ said Anderson, whose admiration of Mel Johnson at Liverpool was undiminished. ‘Mel has been on a knife edge since Damien has gone. That’s how it is. To be fair he has done a terrific job for Liverpool. He has been very good to me. I have got the greatest respect for his knowledge, and I hope it all works out for him. He is one of the good guys.’

The timeline was ominous. Damien Comolli was dismissed on 12 April 2012. Dalglish was sacked on 16 May. Brendan Rodgers was confirmed as his successor on 1 June. The impending appointment of Dave Fallows as Liverpool’s new head of recruitment, and of Barry Hunter as chief scout, was made public on 15 June. Each was immediately placed on gardening leave by Manchester City until the end of the summer transfer window. Liverpool’s remaining scouts were left in limbo.

Johnson’s sense of isolation, shared by Alan Harper, his counterpart in the North of England, was understandable and acute. Yet he was a product of a generation which fostered a sense of duty above personal pride. He considered reactivating the family greetings card business, but continued to scout, on his own initiative, until Fallows and Hunter were in post.

Occasionally, a harsh light would be thrown on background machinations. Two more senior City scouts, Rob Newman and David Fernandez, reneged on an agreement to join Liverpool. Newman, the former Southend and Cambridge United manager, was promoted to a global role in City’s scouting department, while Fernandez took his job, overseeing activities in Spain. Anfield was a place of rhetoric and rumour. The promotion of Michael Edwards, whose expertise in performance analysis mirrored that of Fallows, lent weight to suggestions Liverpool would place fundamental importance on analytical scrutiny of potential signings.

‘I’m still going to games, and people are still asking me what is going on,’ admitted Johnson, as he began to attune himself mentally to defining the type of player suited to Rodgers’ system. ‘I just tell them I’m still there. You will hear that phrase a lot in scouting. Football is an insecure business, and we all have to cope with change. We’ve all been through the mill, wondering what is going to happen. It is the way of our world.’

Maybe so, but the plight of a decent man who cared about his craft bit deeply. I was outraged on Johnson’s behalf; it was a meaningless indulgence, because the supposed victim accepted circumstantial but strangely cathartic indignities. I realised I had completed the process of identification with the tribe. A Nowhere Man does not deserve to be treated as a Nobody.

A fly-on-the-wall TV documentary entitled
Being: Liverpool
was being made at the time. It was, at one level, a corporate video, designed to facilitate the club’s brand-building strategy in Asia and North America. Rodgers, an engaging, sensitive and intelligent man, away from the cameras, came over strangely, as a cross between a folksy philosopher and a corporate automaton. The soft focus Shanklyesque acknowledgement of his working-class roots in Northern Ireland merely served to emphasise a paradigm shift in the club’s structure and culture. A strategic decision appeared to have been taken to monetise tradition, and damn the consequences.

Those closest to Johnson could sense the strain. His son, Jamie, inevitably, had the greatest insight. ‘He won’t let on, but something like this does kick the enthusiasm out of you. All people want, in a situation like this, is to be told whether they are being kept on or not. Once there is some certainty, you can deal with it. Everyone, in whichever way of life, needs to feel appreciated.’

Steve Jones was still a slave to perceived opportunity and persistent disappointment. He had spent the early part of the summer trawling the Football League’s list of released players on behalf of St Johnstone, who faced a hideously early Europa League qualifying tie against Eskisehirspor, the Red Lightnings of Anatolia. The Turkish club, who featured a Portuguese midfield player who dared to desecrate the name Pelé, won 3–1 on aggregate. That, together with the farrago of Rangers’ demotion to the Scottish Third Division, was enough to deter the scout’s latest would-be employers.

‘The manager still wants me but the chairman won’t do it,’ Jones reported, sadly, as another trail went cold on the western bank of the River Tay. ‘I’m doing a bit of
ad hoc
stuff with them, and others. I tried to help Leyton Orient get a striker today. I felt like Tom Cruise. It was Mission Impossible. It is getting me down, to be straight with you. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the European Championships.’

Yet, when the dominoes fall, things can change with disarming speed. Chris Hughton left Birmingham City to return to the Premier League with Norwich City, whose manager Paul Lambert had walked out to join Aston Villa. Lee Clark got the gig at St Andrews on June 26, 2012. His most trusted allies, Terry McDermott and Derek Fazackerley, were recruited as assistant manager and first team coach respectively. Fazackerley, who had worked with Jones under Sven-Goran Eriksson at Leicester, asked him to report to Malcolm Crosby, the new chief scout.

It was an imperfect opportunity. Carson Yeung, Birmingham’s owner, was facing money-laundering charges in Hong Kong, he denied but would not be heard until April 2013, at the earliest. Money at the Championship club was tighter than anyone dared mention, but Jones was decisive. Before he knew it, he was holding a discreet meeting with Crosby, the former Sunderland manager who had been working for Oxford United as head of youth development, at the hotel which formed part of the stadium which housed the MK Dons.

‘Clarkey doesn’t know a lot about the Championship so he wants hundreds of match reports,’ Jones said. ‘I’m not one of those on the gravy train. I’m grateful to Faz for putting my name in, because it’s hard for people like myself to get work. I nearly bombed it all out and did something else with my life, to be honest. There comes a time when you wonder why you put yourself through it. It’s just going round and round in circles. It’s never ending.

‘If you are not with a manager it is really tough. I know people say follow your dream. That’s true. I’ve said it myself. But sometimes you get to the point where you say enough is enough. What chance do you have when you hear someone gets a job because he is the manager’s golf partner? That happens, I kid you not.

‘Malcolm’s a top bloke, a football man, but I’ve basically given him his database. I can prime you on every player at this level. That’s how it works. You get to know your respective divisions, and I have built up a huge knowledge base over the years. I know who is on the way up, and who is on the way down, yet I still can’t get a full-time job. I’ve had seven applications in and I’ve not had a sniff. You think to yourself: am I really a bad person?’

In another twist to the plot, Ewan Chester, Birmingham’s former chief scout, was settling in to a hotel on the outskirts of Norwich, after moving there with Hughton, who was also living out of a suitcase. His wife, a teacher, remained in the family home in Glasgow. His days began at the training ground before 7.30 a.m. It was routinely midnight before the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign was posted outside his hotel room. Even returning to a club he knew well, Chester had little time in which to operate. He was assisted in replenishing the squad by the team he had assembled at Birmingham, which included Eddie Presland, Mel Johnson’s predecessor as Tottenham’s chief scout, Asa Hartford and Colin Suggett.

‘It’s not ideal, but you are governed by the game. I’m lucky, in that my wife is self-contained. We’ve no kids. It is difficult to have a normal life. I am always the problem in a social situation. If someone asks whether I can come for dinner on such and such a night I can’t give any guarantees. Football is full on, twenty-four seven. It evolves into a way of life. When you get to my age, and you admit to yourself you are nearer the end than the beginning, you become even more appreciative of it. I still haven’t found a way to cut a corner. If you feel you are losing your edge it is time to get out, but as Fergie says, as long as the blood is still pumping you march on.’

Chester was 61, but looked a decade younger. Ironically for someone steeped in the heritage of Rangers – they won 15 Scottish League titles, 35 trophies and three domestic trebles in his 20 years at the club – his facial features resembled those of Kenny Dalglish. The blue-grey eyes were piercing, and his cheekbones were similarly sharp. His light brown hair was unfashionably long and swept back, behind his ears. Old Firm football had provided ‘a fast track education’, even if he was nonplussed by the ramifications of Rangers’ fall from grace.

He laughed gently at a definitive childhood memory, being taken by his father to watch Dundee’s 5–1 win at Ibrox in November 1961. The ground was shrouded by a dense fog and a Rangers side featuring the incomparable, tragically self-destructive Jim Baxter were swept away by four second-half goals by Alan Gilzean, who would be subsumed into legend at Tottenham. His first three goals were one-touch finishes. The fourth, a flick past a flailing defender, followed by a low left footed shot into the bottom left-hand corner, was reminiscent of Eric Cantona.

Chester’s own playing career did scant justice to the quality of such tutelage. It never recovered from a bout of pleurisy, which disrupted two years at Workington Town. He played in Hong Kong, and formed a lifelong friendship with Willie Donachie at Oldham, where he was player-coach. Scouting was a natural extension to his career, and the complexity of the emotional challenge in Glasgow was intoxicating: