He dubs them the wise old men of Ibrox. And Rangers boss Michael Beale insists John Park and Neil Banfield are his trusted eyes and guiding lights as they set off on a journey they hope will bring silverware and riches for Rangers.
Beale openly admitted he’d lost a close ally when sporting director Ross Wilson departed last week. That has left the 42-year-old at the forefront of Rangers summer transfer window - one of the biggest and most pivotal recruitment drives in the club’s history. But with assistant boss Banfield, 61, and chief scout Park, 65 – and a third experienced talent spotter in 67-year-old Mervyn Day – at his back Beale is confident the future is bright.
Park in particular will play a key role over the coming weeks and months. His “record of success” excites the Ibrox manager every time he brings a player to his attention. And it’s no wonder, given that Park is the man who, during six years in the same job across the city at Celtic, was credited with discovering star attractions including Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama, and Moussa Dembele whose combined sales topped £45million.
In an age where digital data, online scouting platforms and player rating tools are all the rage the old-fashioned test of the astute human eye will always come first for Beale. That’s why he puts his faith in his recruitment team - built mostly by Wilson over the last three years - with Park at its helm.
It’s a system that helped identify then execute the signings of Nico Raskin from Standard Liege and Todd Cantwell from Norwich in January. And it’s one Beale is confident will deliver more stars in the coming months.
He said: “There are people that I always bounce ideas off and people that have been around a long time, like John. I have one on my staff in terms of Neil Banfield and recruitment is always something I have been involved in at all the clubs I have been at.
“We identify a player, I send my trusted eyes to go and see them and then they will say to me ‘You need to go now’ or ‘you need to open the dialogue and have that conversation’. I am someone that likes to sit in front of players and have a conversation about where they are going and making sure we are on the same page because that helps.
“I need to see how they fit in with the group. The evidence in that is the two boys that came in January, they have come in and settled well into the country, the team and the style of football. We had a lot of conversations prior to them signing.
“John is a hugely valuable member of staff. Even within my own coaching team we have got scouts and we obviously watch a lot of football.
“John is the chief scout so he is off watching games and he would be my trusted eyes, along with my staff and one or two of the senior scouts. Mervyn Day is another one with huge experience that is one of our chief scouts as well.
“Our scouting network is far and wide, that is something that Ross brought into the club that wasn’t here when I first came in, in terms of how big and how wide our recruitment team is.
“John sits at the top of that and what you have with John, obviously, is a record of success. So if John gets excited about a player then it makes you sit and listen and open your eyes.
“I didn’t know John before, to be fair. But from the moment I have come in, him and Neil are the like two wise old men. They go and sit in the corner and talk about when there was no back pass rule and stuff like that! They’ve got a lot of experience.”
Data will always have its place in the modern game. But Beale insists some of the best signings made by Rangers in the five years since he first arrived as assistant to Steven Gerrard have been through watching games not computer algorithms.
Glen Kamara and Calvin Bassey are two cases in point. He said: “It has got to pass the test of your eyes. Even with all the data and stuff like that, it is eyes first and you use the data to back things up. Certainly not the other way around. It is important for us to have eyes on players and meeting them and doing a 360 around them.
“I think data has come into the game and it is fantastic, but when you go back to when I was here previously and we recruited Glen Kamara, who was in and out of the Dundee team at the time, it was a curious one.
“But we weren’t looking at that player playing for Dundee, we were looking at that player thinking ‘does he have the skill set to play for Rangers?’ With the way that we play and the dynamics of our club. That went on to be a really successful one.
“And the same when you watch young players like Calvin Bassey in a B Team game or Joe Aribo at Charlton, you have to make a judgement on whether you think that boy will be successful here. Those three were or are successful transfers for the club. It shows you it is not always about spending money, it is about knowing what is going to fit and what the group needs.”
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