Bolton Wanderers | Team | Backroom Staff Profiles | Backroom Staff Profiles

Cliff Roberts

Posted on: Wed 15 Sep 2010

As Head of Recruitment at Bolton Wanderers, Cliff Roberts brings a wealth of experience to the football club.

Roberts was chief scout at Burnley for 12 years prior to moving to the Reebok Stadium in January, and before that occupied various roles at Bury including youth and reserve team coach for the best part of a decade.

It's that background which gives the Liverpudlian a firm grounding in the game because, as he explains, knowledge in football and judgement of a player are essential qualities in his day-to-day work.

"It's a fascinating job," enthuses Roberts. "In fact, I don't consider it a job, I consider it as a pleasure because I enjoy it so much!

"My exact role involves working alongside Colin Harvey, Alan Harper and Terry Darracott to try and bring quality players to the club. Fortunately we have all known each other for a long time, having associations not just as scouts but also friends.

"We obviously have a close working relationship with the manager and we know what type of players we need and want to recruit, trusting each other's judgement.

"We have a vast scouting network and when players come to my attention, I follow those leads up. If they have impressed then I suggest those players to the manager, believing that they will do a good job for the club.

"There are four scouts working in Europe every weekend, watching games throughout all the different leagues and hopefully we will get some good results from that.

"A lot of planning is required but 95 percent of our job is elimination and making sure that we don't sign a player who is not good enough. Obviously the Premier League is a very high standard and we have a lot of quality here already, and to improve on that is not easy.

"So on a lot of occasions we are going to games, watching players and we simply end up crossing them off our radar."

While first impressions are important when scouting a player, Roberts explains that there are other key attributes that need investigating.

Ability, attitude, consistency and personality are all characteristics that will influence the scouts' final decision on whether an interest in a player is worth following-up.

"A lot of categories come into consideration when you identify a player," he added.

"Obviously it's sometimes difficult to find out about the character of foreign players, but you try to get as much background information as possible.

"We would never sign a player without looking at him, and sometimes we even have to go and watch them in action three or four times before we make a decision.

"In some ways it is dodgy making a judgement on a player after seeing him just the once because he may have had a very good game and inconsistency is an attribute that you have to guard against.

"We like to watch them perform not just at home but also away to see how they adapt, and we'll even try to catch them in a warm-up to see what kind of attitude they have.

"So there is a lot of research that needs to be done before you will actually make a firm recommendation on signing a footballer."