8 1GG Monday June 29 2020 | the times
thegame
Park was an IT manager
until giving it up to
pursue football scoutingabout £3.2million), the most
expensive deal for a Dutch defender
that summer. By then, however, Celtic
had gambled on spending a little over
half that sum on the other guy.
Park’s small unit of video scouts,
analysts and technicians would pore
over data on the names he submitted
to them after tips from a network of
contacts across Europe and beyond.
This youngster at Groningen was
showing up. The age was right: 21. He
had the height, 6ft 4in, and the
physique, weighing about 200lb, and
he was within budget. Pound-for-
pound, his profile seemed a better fit
than Van der Hoorn’s. Virgil van Dijk
was pulsing on Celtic’s radar.
Park flew over to watch him once,
and then again and again. “We went
to see him in a few games,” Park said.
“In one in particular he just kept
wanting to get on the ball and take
control of the situation.
“We kept going to watch his
performances: good, bad,
indifferent, good, good, good.
Sometimes he’d give the ball
away. The beauty was that he
was always prepared to take
it and build, no matter
what. His confidence
was awesome. It
didn’t faze him if he
made a mistake or
lost it, he was on to
the next one. For a
young man to be
like that and take
the ball from the
back was special.
Older centre halves
would just go, ‘Hoof,
get it up the park.’
Not him.”
The scout’s interest
soared. “He had
everything in his
A scout’s reputation is on the line
every time a potential target is
pushed under a manager’s nose with
the recommendation: “We should
sign this guy.” Contacts, data and
persuasiveness are important in the
talent-spotter’s weaponry but nothing
scores higher than an instinct for who
will be a good signing.
When John Park was at Celtic he
would sit with the management team
after lunch, present his footage and
figures for the latest player or two he
really liked and then prepare to take
some good-natured stick. “Come on
then, what shit have you got for us
today?” Garry Parker, the assistant
manager, would say. Park would
laugh and fire a line back and they
would sit down to watch the tapes.
It was 2013. Neil Lennon was in his
first spell in charge, with Parker and
Johan Mjällby in his backroom team.
As the chief scout, Park was a trusted
member of the inner circle. Celtic
were looking for a centre half and
Park had whittled his options down to
two candidates in the Netherlands.
One was Mike van der Hoorn, who
was 20, stood 6ft 3in tall and had
been in Utrecht’s first team for two
seasons. A few weeks later he would
move to Ajax for €3.8 million (then
How a scout’s tip put Van
MICHAEL GRANT
Scottish Football Correspondent
locker. There wasn’t any weakness.
His passing was sublime. When we
saw him against good opposition you
knew you were watching a class
footballer. In Holland it was 4-3-3 and
they were up against him. The two
wide men were coming in and
attacking his second mistake or
whatever but he always knew where
the danger lay and he would try to
thread it through the lines.”
Park, 64, did not play professionally
and was an IT manager at Glasgow
Caledonian University until giving
that up in his mid-40s to pursue
coaching and scouting. He worked
with the youths at Hamilton
Academical and then Motherwell,
before becoming youth academy
director at Hibernian.
No active scout matches his track
record in Scotland. He helped to find
or develop the Scotland internationals
Garry O’Connor, Scott Brown, Steven
Whittaker and Steven Fletcher at
Hibernian, while Georgios Samaras,
Victor Wanyama, Ki Sung-yueng,
Kris Commons and Moussa Dembélé
were among many conspicuous hits
over nine years at Celtic.
When Lennon saw Park’s
enthusiasm for Van Dijk, he devoured
the evidence — “When the
recruitment team showed me videos
of him I thought, ‘He’s going to be the
next Rio Ferdinand’ ” — then went to
watch him in the flesh. Lennon still
recalls his disbelief that Van Dijk was
available so cheaply and there was no
stampede of rival scouts. “You are
thinking, ‘There’s got to be something
wrong with this kid. He’s got to have
an eye missing or something.’ ”
In fact, others were watching,
especially Ajax, but they were
unsure and would not commit.
After Park had spied on Van
Dijk several times and Lennon
had seen him it was the turn of
Mjällby, the only former centre
half among them. Park
remembers his reaction. “Johan
came back and said, ‘I enjoyed
the game, I enjoyed watching
him. I didn’t think he had a great
game but John, Neil... I’d sign
him.’ Neil said right, that was it,
everyone was of the same opinion
so we needed to get hold of him.”
Van Dijk signed a four-year
contract with Celtic on June 21, 2013,
costing £2 million and admitting that
the prospect of playing in the
Champions League was a big
attraction. At the end of his
first training session at
Celtic’s Lennoxtown
complex, Lennon walked
up to him and said:
“Enjoy yourself
here son, you won’t
be here long.”
He cruised through two full
campaigns in Scotland like a
powerful teenager in a primary
school playground, head and
shoulders above the rest.
He was a
thoroughbred. The
former St Johnstone
striker Graham
Cummins recalled
being swatted
aside and Van
Dijk looking
down, saying: “I
wouldn’t even
bother, I’m just too
good.” He was so quickbLiverpool will follow up the
condemnation of their supporters for
flouting social distancing guidelines
when celebrating their title win by
re-emphasising the need to respect
public health requirements in an
attempt to avoid any more mass
gatherings.
The club will promote the message
“stay safe, stay at home” until the end
of this season, and a new campaign is
likely to be rolled out at the start ofFans urged to
and strong that he could go through
the motions in the Scottish top flight,
appearing almost bored.
There were two Premiership titles
and a League Cup, although
somehow Celtic team-mates pipped
him to the main player-of-the-year
awards. Park felt that Lennon and
Scottish football sharpened him as a
defender. “Lenny was the catalyst for
Van Dijk, he did an unbelievable job
on him. You don’t get a minute in a
game in Scotland. They’re right up
against you all the time. And I think
Van Dijk learnt even more in the
European games.”
After 9½ years at Celtic, Park left in
2016 when Brendan Rodgers, the
manager, brought in Lee Congerton
as head scout. Park set up his ownconsultancy and
worked with
Vancouver Whitecaps
and Maccabi Haifa.
Of the gems he discovered, Van Dijk
was the jewel in the crown. “It’s like
stockbroking,” he said. “It’s a
commodity, but when you get that
feeling from the manager you’re
pleased for everybody. There are
many people involved in the process.”
Having initiated Van Dijk’s arrival
in British football, before
Southampton and Liverpool moves
worth £11.5 million and £75 million
respectively, he had little contact after
delivering him to Parkhead. “You
move on,” he said. “That’s it, job done.
The coaching staff look after him
from there. Thank you, goodbye.”GRONINGEN
2011-13
League games62
Signed forFREE
CELTIC
2013-15
League games76
Signed for£2m
0.66
Liverpool goals conceded per league
game since Van Dijk signed 2½ years
ago — it was 1.2 in the previous 2½ years
PAUL JOYCE
Northern Football Correspondent