With a CV which includes Bolton Wanderers at the height of their international recruitment drive, Chelsea early in the Roman Abramovich era and Leicester City as they built a Premier League-winning squad, when Dave Worthington speaks about scouting, it is well worth paying attention.
A few chairman could do worse than make a beeline for the Old Woollen in Leeds when he signs copies of his autobiography there on August 20.
Despite that background and more than 500 league appearances as a player, the 80-year-old is not one of football's big names – or even the biggest in his family, thanks to his legendary brother, Frank.
Right-backs seldom are, especially when they spend much of their time playing for Grimsby Town and continually returning to his spiritual home at Halifax Town. Neither are scouts – it is kind of the point.
DOUBTS: Dave Worthington never felt former Leeds United left-back Junior Firpo was cut out for the Premier League (Image: Tony Johnson)placeholder image
DOUBTS: Dave Worthington never felt former Leeds United left-back Junior Firpo was cut out for the Premier League (Image: Tony Johnson)
But the retired talent-spotter’s thoughts on how clubs find talent are particularly pertinent after Sheffield United parted ways with his ex-Halifax player Chris Wilder.
Wilder objected to the Blades' data-driven recruitment strategy, with Mihail Polendakov, Ehije Ukaki, Christian Nwachukwu and Jefferson Caceres identified by artificial intelligence. Brighton and Hove Albion and Brentford have become Premier League role models partly for their the shrewd use of data.
Worthington is not dismissing AI out of hand, but it has to be used in the right way.
"At Bolton, Sam Allardyce brought in Dave Fallows from ProZone and he was brilliant for me when I became chief scout,” says Worthington. “He could find where to look for these players but didn't have my knowledge of what players were like.
UNHOLY ROW: Disagreements over artificial intelligence scouting led to Chris Wilder leaving Sheffield United this summer (Image: David Klein / Sportimage)placeholder image
UNHOLY ROW: Disagreements over artificial intelligence scouting led to Chris Wilder leaving Sheffield United this summer (Image: David Klein / Sportimage)
"A lot of lads come out of university and they get jobs because they're good at data and analysis but they've got to know the other side of the game as well.
"You need some knowledge of working in the game at a reasonable professional level to spot certain things in terms of attitude and interaction with team-mates.”
Scouts, like football writers, need to be at the match to get the full picture.
"When you look at a TV game or the stats you don't see what players are doing out of possession,” argues Worthington. “You've got to be at the games to see his attitude after he's given a pass away or what his team-mates say to him when he does.
EARLY LESSION: Dave Worthington learnt from scouting Achille Emana Edzimbi (Image: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)placeholder image
EARLY LESSION: Dave Worthington learnt from scouting Achille Emana Edzimbi (Image: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
"A pass is counted as a correct pass (by statisticians) when it goes to another team-mate but there's a lot more to it than that. They look at running stats but so what? Are you doing your running in the right place?
"I worry some clubs rely too much on data. It can bring some things up but not everything. We always watched players three or four times live and made notes. You're usually one of a team watching him.
"On my first scouting visit in France I got excited about a player who looked so good for Toulouse, Achille Emana Edzimbi. He had pace, strength, size, he was getting quality balls into the box from the right non-stop. So I rang Jack (Chapman, Bolton’s then-chief scout) and said I'd found a player. Jack said, 'Go and watch him a couple of times and watch him away from home.'
"I watched him three or four more times away from home and he was totally ineffective. He didn't want the ball, he was lazy. He went to Real Betis but he would never have made a Premier League player.
RISK-TAKER: An honest opinion of Ivan Campo really launched Dave Worthington's scouting career (Image: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)placeholder image
RISK-TAKER: An honest opinion of Ivan Campo really launched Dave Worthington's scouting career (Image: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
"I was asked to watch a player once and he was dropped the week before. I watched him on the bench and in the warm-up. The warm-up was a joke to him, trying to stop his mates from warming up correctly."
Worthington's first mission was impromptu, sent to watch winger Brian Pilkington when suspended as a Barrow player. At Bradford City he did some scouting whilst coaching the reserves in the early 1980s. It first became his focus at Halifax.
"I did almost every job for them," he says. "My dad (Eric) played for them, I played for them as a teenager and I finished my career by going back. I became a director, I managed the first team for a short time, I was in charge of coaching the second team and eventually I became commercial manager.
"We tried to put a scouting network together. I never envisaged being a scout but all of a sudden it took hold of my life.
"When Halifax went bust again (in 2002) I was doing a little bit for Boston United. I spoke to Jack Chapman who'd been working with Sam Allardyce to bring in players from Spain, France and all over. He invited me to watch a behind closed doors game.
"He said they'd brought a player in from Spain. I just thought it was a nice thing of Jack to ask but at the end of the game he asked if I'd written any notes.
Dave Worthington in his Halifax Town days.placeholder image
Dave Worthington in his Halifax Town days.
"I'd written some about Ivan Campo saying I didn't think he'd fit into the Premier League at centre-half (his position for previous club Real Madrid, and that day). He was a good passer, great brain, lovely technique, but in the Premier League he’d struggle because he takes risks. He could fit into midfield in front of a back four.
"Jack took my notes to Sam and asked if I'd wait. He came back about an hour later and asked did I want to work for Bolton? The gaffer liked my opinion and my honesty about a player they'd just signed.
"I started off doing match reports mainly in Yorkshire and Lancashire but when I went to live in France it really took off looking at individual players."
Good players not quite having what it takes for the Premier League is a theme with Worthington, who also scouted for Hull City, Blackburn Rovers, West Ham United, Sunderland and Everton.
"I watched Junior Firpo in Spain many times and I always thought he was a good player – good technique, good on the ball, but he didn't work hard enough off it," he says. "I would never have signed him for a Premier League club and now Leeds are back in the Premier League they've released him. He's gone back to Betis and he'll have a good career there. In France, Spain, Portugal the top three or four clubs are quality and so are most of their players but they play teams way below our Championship standard so it's easier to play exceptionally week after week."
Wjich is where a top scout comes into his own.
Worthy: The Scouting Adventures and Football Life of Dave Worthington by Dave Worthington with Phil Dawkes is published by Pitch on August 18.