Trying to spot the next Keane

For football people, real football people, the game has a way of influencing their view of everything else in the world. Take Jimmy Cousins, Manchester City's chief scout in Ireland and a man who has, by his own admission, had "a great life out of the game". Over the years, Cousins, an amiable 57-yearold, has played football, managed teams and guided two sons towards professional careers. These days, he puts teenagers who are convinced they are the next Robbie Keane in touch with a club that hopes they are right.

On a chilly winter's afternoon, Cousins is standing watching an under-13 league game in Sundrive Park in Crumlin, Dublin. He is explaining why it is so important that youngsters grab any chance to fulfil their dreams. Otherwise, he insists, the sense of squandered opportunity may haunt them for the rest of their lives.

"Take our Taoiseach," he says. "I read somewhere recently that he wanted nothing more when he was a lad than to play for Manchester United when he grew up. Well, I'm not saying that he'd swap it now, but that was his dream and I'm sure that when he goes to sleep at night he probably does play for Manchester United . . . He's only human."

Cousins knows all about young boys with footballing dreams. His own career was ended when he was hit by a car at an early age just 100 yards or so from where he is now watching Cherry Orchard play Lourdes Celtic. But his son Tony had spells at Chelsea and Liverpool before returning to Ireland and establishing himself as one of the top players in the country with Dundalk, Bohemians and, most recently, Shamrock Rovers. Meanwhile, his youngest son, Andrew, recently made his international debut at under-15 level and, despite his father's connections to City, has just agreed to join Leeds United when he is 16 and old enough to make the move.

It was while Tony was at Chelsea that Cousins became involved in scouting. After watching his son play a youth team game against Leyton Orient, he was impressed with the enthusiasm of the Orient manager, former England assistant manager John Gorman, and offered to help him however he could.

"He said he was looking for a goalkeeper, and so when I came home I sent him Stephen O'Brien, told him that if the lad was three inches taller he wouldn't have had a chance of getting him - and he came straight back to me and told me I was right," recalls Cousins.

Others followed O'Brien, who now plays back here with Longford Town, to London. Then Cousins had a chance meeting with the then Everton manager, Howard Kendall, at an international match and agreed to work for the Merseyside club instead. Over the next 10 years, Everton signed five players recommended by Cousins, including his nephew, Richard Dunne, the young centre-half who did so well for Ireland last year.

Gradually, though, Everton's financial troubles prevented them from competing for the leading youngsters - a well-regarded prospect can receive more than £250,000 over three years and only a small percentage repay the investment. When the manager who gave Dunne his senior club debut, Joe Royle, moved to Manchester City and took most of his coaching staff with him, Cousins switched to Maine Road too.

"Joe is great for giving young lads a chance in the team and that counts for a lot in my game," he says. "Only last week a lad I sent over, Paul Murphy, signed for City when there were a lot of other clubs after him. He's from Wexford, a terrific lad, but the reason he didn't sign for Liverpool was that he saw too many foreign players going there so he didn't think that he'd get a chance there." Nearly all the better players are chased by a number of clubs and, in the game we watch together, a youngster called John Paul Kelly of Lourdes Celtic is one of several youngsters that scouts from Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton and Arsenal have come along to keep an eye on. Some scouts, like Arsenal's Bill Darby, who stands 50 metres from us along the touchline, are associated with particular players they have sent to England. In Darby's case, these are Liam Brady, Dave O'Leary and Frank Stapleton, while Noel McCabe, then working for Nottingham Forest, is credited with discovering Roy Keane, and Eddie Corcoran is known for having sent Robbie Keane to Wolves.

WITH most scouts going to see half-a-dozen games every weekend, plus trials for inter-league teams and every possible representative game, the reality is, says Cousins, that if a player is particularly good, then just about everybody knows about him by the time he is 10 years old. After that, it is just a question of watching, waiting and trying to persuade him - and his parents - to sign. That, he says, is all left to the full-time staffs in England to sort out.

"My job is simply to alert the club to the player and try to get the player to think in positive terms about the club," he says. "In reality, I'm the doorman for Manchester City."

Sometimes good prospects are passed over because a club already has a surplus of players in a particular position, but usually a youngster showing the required talent is courted assiduously. In the case of Stephen Bradley, a former Lourdes Celtic player, one newspaper reported that a contract offer from West Ham worth more than £400,000 was turned down. Even a visit to the family home by Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson didn't stop the youngster eventually signing for Arsenal.

"You could have had somebody from every single Premiership club here watching him a couple of years ago," recalls Cousins. "But even with all of his talent, he'll still need a bit of luck to make it. All sorts of things can go wrong. The lad mightn't settle, he might stop growing and so he ends up being too small. Or when he makes the step up to the higher level, you just might find that he can't cope.

"Whenever you send somebody over, though, you desperately want them to succeed. The difficult bit is, though, that a week after I've sent them, it's my job to go out there and find somebody else who is even better."