David Pleat tells a story about scouting a young striker, playing for Hayes in the Isthmian League. Cyrille Regis had been scoring prolifically throughout the 1976-77 season and a number of clubs were on to him. Top clubs, too. Back then it wasn’t unthinkable for a player to move directly from non-League to the old First Division.
On the night Pleat, then with Luton, watched Regis, so did a dozen or more managers, coaches and scouts. He didn’t have a good game. With about 10 minutes left, the talent-spotters were looking at their watches. A steady trickle made their way towards the exit. Pleat says he was down the stairs on his way out when Hayes’ winger put in a cross and Regis rose four feet above any other player on the pitch to head it into the net.
The bosses froze. This was a player with value. Within days, Regis had signed for West Brom, where he scored 112 goals in 301 matches. Pleat uses the story to show that if a player can be the best at just one thing, he has value. Certainly, a player who can leap like a stag will always have his admirers — as Shawn McCoulsky, a 21-year-old forward on loan from Bristol City to Newport, may be about to find out.
You can teach a player to become a better footballer; you can’t teach him to jump a torso higher than the rest, and nail a last-minute winner against Leeds.