The Nowhere Men (21 page)

Bakare was 27, too old, too unreliable and too high maintenance. Scouts representing Morecambe, Dagenham & Redbridge and Luton were unimpressed. St Albans manager David Howell was sanguine about their disinterest. A protégé of Barry Fry, he understood the limitations of the type of open audition staged by Barnet, one of a number of small clubs who used them to address cash flow problems. He liked the man, a devout Muslim whose love of biscuits had led to him being given the soubriquet ‘The Custard Cream Kid’ in the local press, but knew the shortcomings of the footballer:

‘Sakho definitely has ability, but has to learn to work within a team. At this level you have to put the work in. A lot of the lads are part time. There’s really nowhere for us to train. We can only use certain parts of the pitch in midweek. That in itself is challenging. People have been looking at him, but not enough boxes are being ticked. Is he mentally strong enough? Is he a one-trick pony? He needs to listen, to follow instructions better. It is as simple as that. His mindset is telling him to do something different. Our biggest enemies, as coaches, are deeply ingrained bad habits.

‘The trial at Barnet was awful, to be honest. There were players with their agents, their parents, their partners and their mates. It was a free for all. I asked for numbers for three or four players, to disguise my interest in Sakho. We were light up front and needed someone to fit into a pattern. It is strange, but I remember the exact sequence of play when I noticed him. He took the ball on his chest around about the halfway line, went to go right and shimmied back on to his left. He got the ball out to the right wing, and immediately headed into the box with a real sense of urgency. That stuck.

‘He’s a lovely lad, but he speaks no English. He fell out with his agent and I kept getting texts from his landlord, who wasn’t getting paid. It turns out he was going from house to house, relying on friends and sleeping where he could. He was on the streets for one or two nights. His family is still in France, and he is seeing where football will take him. He has his dreams and aspirations. This is his way out. But, at this level, a lot of people are deluded.’

The truth behind such a bleak statement was written in cyberspace. Scouts of any substance tended to shy away from the open days, unless they needed a little pocket money to see them through to the pre-season friendlies. A whole range of initiatives, some as well intentioned as others were brazenly exploitative, gave the impression that fame was just a click, and a series of 20-minute trial matches, away. It was here, on the internet, that football’s flotsam and jetsam found a disembodied, confused voice:

Hello Scouts, Agents and Managers, I have a Ghanaian footballer who plays just like Ashley Cole of Chelsea fc, anybody interested to have him try out how good strong, talented left footed young boy.

I HAVE TOP STRIKER
1994
FROM EGYPT PLAY IN THE BEST TEAM IN AFRICA AND NT OF EGYPT. WANT TO PLAY IN ENGLAND OR SPAIN OR TOP TEAM IN EUROPE. FOR CV AND VIDEO PLEASE CONTACT ME.

PLAYERS. SPANISH INTERNACIONAL U
16
LOOKING NEW CLUB TOP IN EUROPE
.
Contact Sergio.

Scout, Manager and Agent interested in coming to Nigeria to Scout for Players or have a look at African talent on grassroots level and become pro for great deals. We will provide accommodation and security, throughout Nigeria. As we all known that African as a whole has good talented players, who need sincere and honest scout from European countries and Asia to help them show case there talent to the world. We are going to arrange for match, trials for the players in the present of the agent scout and managers to evaluate the players that suit such agent, scout and Manager Thanks to you all, God bless.

I know
20
-year old soccer player who wants to be a professional soccer player in the world. If you need the player to introduce to professional soccer clubs, please let me know.

Have a great European Goalkepeer
1
.
12
.
95
looking for a UK academy can anyone assist!!

I have some young quality good players I want to sponsor for trial. Please, I need club to invite my players, I will buy their tickets to come over for trial. Please email me if you are in need of players. I have
2
strikers and
1
midfielder. And some others available play.

I am an English-born (mixed race Spanish, St Lucian and English) attacking player. My perfect position would be just behind the striker(s) and in front of the midfield. Football trials from a top company.

Taken individually, the messages had the troubling poignancy of a love letter from a fleeting acquaintance. Viewed collectively, they conformed to a pattern, a combination of spam and scam. These were shards of dreams, momentary insights into empty lives. They damned the system, and the sport which encouraged them. Demand for footballers was increasingly specific; supply was inexhaustible. Recruitment, on the margins, was unregulated and unseemly. The better scouts, appreciative of their responsibilities as arbiters, were more comfortable with convention.

The Premier League and Football League outsourced exit trials, for young men released by academies and centres of excellence. Some were tailored to identifiable markets, such as the American College system. The majority were essentially a cross between a careers fair and a cattle market. These typically featured between 100 and 150 players, and were distinguished by certain rules and regulations. Scouts were forbidden from directly approaching players or their parents. Instead, they were required to lodge expressions of interest, which could be monitored appropriately.

The most intriguing initiative had commercial connotations, but was driven by altruism. The Nike Academy was unashamedly a marketing tool, but, as a human experiment, it had depth, credibility and value. It operated out of Loughborough University, and featured a fluid squad of around 18 players, under the age of 20, previously released by professional clubs. It was exclusive, and all-inclusive. The boys lived on campus, received cutting-edge scientific support, and had eight hours’ contact time with tutors each week so they could continue, or resume, their education. They were supervised by Premier League staff, had the security of one-year contracts, and were expected to focus on a single objective, impressing visiting scouts, and getting back into the professional game.

Head coach Jimmy Gilligan, a former Watford and Cardiff City striker, also scouted for the England Under 21 squad. The Nike Academy was fed by two talent identification programmes: The Chance, a global competition featuring 100,000 players from 55 countries, and annual trials, which featured up to 200 players, released by British clubs. Twelve of the squad from the 2011–12 season were given professional contracts. The example they set was powerful, inspirational.

David Accam had gone from Evesham United, in Division One of the Southern League, to playing for Helsingborg in the Champions League. Tom Rogic, an attacking midfield player who won The Chance, was a full Australian international at 19, and had a four-and-a-half-year contract at Celtic. Alex Whittle, initially rejected by Liverpool, was a first team regular at Dunfermline. Exeter retained their faith in defender Jordan Tillson, despite a freak metatarsal injury which kept him out for five months. Other graduates were developing their careers in Scandinavia, South Africa, Belarus, Ireland and Italy.

The class of 2012–13 began to take shape on a windy day, under a weak sun, on a pitch set on a plateau behind the university’s new stadium. Thirty-five survivors of the initial trials were split into two squads, yellow and blue, who would compete in three forty-minute matches. They were evaluated by Gilligan, fitness adviser Jon Goodman, assistant coach Matt Wells and goalkeeping coach Mark Goodlad. ‘We’re doing due diligence,’ said Gilligan. ‘We’re making assessments of players technically, tactically and physically, but also looking at them as young men and human beings.’

A couple of boys released by Chelsea had abandoned the trials that morning, preferring to gamble on their association with the club generating interest. ‘They’re in a bubble,’ said Goodman, who was sitting on a blue plastic drinks box, as the hopefuls warmed up. ‘It pains me to say it, but they’ve probably had their careers. These boys are all quite nice footballers, but we’re looking for that little something that separates those who make it, and those who don’t. Some struggle to understand this process. This is about the individual, not the team. We have somehow to identify the character of those who will work with us.’

This was a challenge to football’s
modus operandi
, which involves choosing the most talented, and extemporising from there. It involved elements of the SAS recruitment strategy; Special Forces look beyond basic competencies and select on the basis of a candidate’s capacity for self-improvement. David Goldsmith, a striker released by West Bromwich Albion, was asked, casually, to take the yellow team’s warm-up. He didn’t appear to realise his leadership qualities were being scrutinised, subtly, but the strength of his character, and his ease of command, shone through. He was a goal up, before kick-off.

‘Everything that I’ve seen tells me there is a place for this type of academy,’ said Gilligan, as he stood on a hill, surveying the scene. ‘These kids need help before they get that ninety minute trial game, in front of a scout or a manager. They need time to develop. They need time to practise. They need time to be mentored. We’ve had twelve professional contracts, out of the door, in the last year. What would have happened to those players without something like this? Where would they have gone? Who would have seen them? Who would have picked them up?

‘When I took this job I had to trawl around the country at a hundred miles an hour. I was saying to clubs, “You’ve got these scholars out there, these neo-pros you don’t want. Send them to us.” They are taking it on board now, but are still conditioned to ask what the catch is when they want someone. The catch is, we will give you a player. There’s no baggage. You take him into your football club. He gets the best contract he can out of you, and hopefully he’ll go on and do very, very well for you. He’s a free agent. We want nothing. Not a bean. It simply gives me, my bosses at Nike, and the money people at the Premier League great, great joy when we get a player back into the game. That is, for us, the pinnacle of what we’re trying to achieve.’

Fourteen spectators watched the trial unfold. Two were scouts from American universities. Eleven were parents. They stood alone, imprisoned in an invisible force field of angst and apprehension. Their furrowed brows, furled umbrellas and Tupperware boxes, containing snacks, testified to the familiarity of the ordeal. The solitary club representative was David Dodds, assistant academy manager at Reading. He offered moral support to Jorge Grant, who had been released because of a numbers game, triggered by the desire of Anton Zingarevich, the club’s new Russian owner, to replenish the academy with prospects from Europe, and beyond.

The folly of the decision was instantly apparent. Grant, known as ‘Yellow Ten’ for the day, was, at 17, one of the youngest triallists. Small but nimble, he moved with the fluidity of a fawn in flight across open country. He was billed as a central midfield player, but his game intelligence allowed him to operate wide, on either flank, or as a second striker. He had a great appreciation of space and an eye for goal. Gilligan reminded his brains trust, ‘This is all about who we can get out of the back door, and into a club.’ Giving Grant an opportunity to do so was a no-brainer:

‘Talent ID, and scouting, is all about opinions. So when you’re looking at a sixteen- to twenty-one-year old, you ask yourself: has the player got progression in him? Clubs will look to see how someone like the Yellow Ten can fit into the club structure: is he going into the first team squad, the development group, or is he just going to be a scholar for two years? A clever chairman and a clever director of youth or head of academy would weigh up his sell-on potential.

‘We live in an imperfect world, in football. That boy, by rights, should be getting a contract. Someone should be working on him, on his development, physically, technically and tactically. If you gave him the right amount of coaching hours, and the right amount of advice, I can’t see any reason why that boy wouldn’t go and play in someone’s first team in this country. But, and it’s a huge but, with money coming into clubs, people look further afield. They are prepared to pay more. I don’t necessarily have an axe to grind with that, but I would question the assumption that paying more for a young player means he will necessarily get better.

‘Sometimes you just know. A lad like the one we are talking about might need to grow into what this programme is about. He’s only a young one, remember. What that boy’s got going for him, that everyone can see, is that he can play. He’s got technical ability. But he’s also got an unbelievable amount of potential, bags and bags of it. For a coach or a scout, that’s a huge buzz. To be able to say “that kid sees it, he’s got progression in him” is really, really exciting.’

Other decisions would not be so clear cut. Following the trial, Gilligan and his brains trust retired to a self-styled ‘War Room’ in the academy offices on the far side of the campus. An A4-sized photograph of each boy was placed, face up, on some tables, which had been pushed together. The coaches had their own notes, supplemented by physiological and biographical information. Video clips were available, from a laptop, if required.

‘What’s coming through the door, then?’ said Gilligan, with a jauntiness which belied the gravity of potentially life-changing decisions which would be taken, over the next hour or so. ‘Ground rules. We remove the people we all agree on from the table. Any question mark, they stay there. Those we are definitely not going to take, we turn over, face down. We will send official letters tonight, maybe phone a few immediately. No point in keeping them waiting.’ The debate quickly gathered momentum. In true football fashion, it featured directness, bordering on cruelty, and subjectivity, laced with compassion: