The network of one

Hey ,

My first paid job in football came through one person.

Someone I worked with at Sky Bet got a role at Wigan.

He brought me in as a recruitment analyst. Part-time, around my day job.

Player rating models, data visualisation, and out doing live and video scouting across the Midlands.

I'd done freelance scouting and analysis before that, paid and unpaid. But this was the first time a club had me on a contract.

When he left Wigan, the opportunity was different.

So I left too.

Partly that was a decision. I wanted to go and get better. My technical skills, my network, my visibility.

But partly it was that the thing I'd been brought into wasn't the same thing any more.

I didn't think of that as a risk at the time.

It was just how I got in.

It took me years to understand what had actually happened there.

I had one way in.

Not a network. Not a route I'd built. One person, who happened to be somewhere useful.

And when he moved, the reason why I was there had moved as well.

This is actually the case for a lot of people in football as it's a people and relationships game.

Now, nothing actually ends when that person goes.

He's still a contact. Still takes your call.

I'm still in touch with people who hired me and then went on to bigger roles elsewhere. Some of the most useful relationships I have.

The relationship survives.

What changes is the opportunity.

The role you were brought into isn't the same role once the person who wanted you there has gone. New priorities, new people, and sometimes no longer a job anyone needs doing.

Which is exactly why relying on one connection is never enough.

Someone emailed me last week who is living the same thing, except he didn't get to choose.

He's been a first team analyst at step 3. He's scouted across step 2 and the lower EFL. He's worked with a club across their academy and their recruitment.

Last summer he scouted and recommended three players.

All three were signed by the first team.

And he wrote to ask me whether he's good enough to work in football.

Here's what actually happened to him.

One person brought him in. That person left in October. The new director came in with his own people.

The door closed.

He thinks that's a story about him.

It isn't. He had one way in, same as I did, and it closed.

We ran a session inside the Recruitment Room with an analytics manager at a Brazilian club. In roughly two years at one of his previous clubs, he worked under six head coaches, five sporting directors and three presidents.

One club. Two years.

That's the industry.

The person who lets you in will move on. Sacked, promoted, poached, restructured out of the building.

It isn't a risk in football. It's the reality.

Another guest we had in, now a technical scout at a Premier League group, spent years doing exactly what I did.

He got his first work through one person. Then followed that person to a second club. Then to a third.

The third one agreed full-time terms with him. Shook hands on it.

Then never spoke to him again.

That was his way in, and it was gone.

What got him back was nothing to do with any of those people. He sent a short congratulations message to a head of recruitment who'd just been appointed somewhere else.

That turned into a meeting. Then a part-time role. Then a full-time one.

He could send that message because he already had a connection with him. He had trust and an existing relationship.

Same trap as everyone else. But he just built a second way in before he needed it.

So the question isn't who do you know.

It's will you have the network to help you, should your own connection leave tomorrow.

For most people the honest answer is no.

Now before you tell me you're not a networker, good. Neither am I, particularly.

Because the version that works isn't networking.

I was posting my work on Nottingham Forest. Just putting it out there.

Then one morning I woke up to a phone call from Andy Reid.

Under-21s coach at the time. A player I'd grown up watching.

He wanted me to come in and do some work on their loan players.

I'd never met him. I still don't know how he got my number.

That's a relationship I never had to go and make.

My work and visibility made the connection for me.

So go and look at your network this week.

Not your LinkedIn connections. Your actual contacts. People you can call. Will these people be there when you need to lean on them?

If not, you need to build more meaningful relationships.