For Michael Cairney, it’s not just about taking off for Slovenia, Hungary, or Denmark.
Cairney sits down at the ARMCO Arena a few hours after this interview with Courier Sport, which was his first since taking up the role of head of recruitment at Dundee United.
The National League team Forest Green Rovers is visiting Solihull Moors.
Will this voyage produce the Tangerines’ next big hit signee? Not according to the law of percentages. Cairney travels thousands of miles each year to attend hundreds of games in an attempt to find those elusive jewels.
And there was no other way he would have it. Since he was a teenager and understood, in a story as ancient as time, that he wouldn’t measure up as a football player at any significant level, Cairney committed himself to the scouting and analysis side of the game.
As Cairney tells Courier Sport, “I was a bang average player, so my sporting ambition became to go down this road.” “Ever since I was a teenager, I enjoyed discussing in-depth aspects of my gameplay or that of my teammates.”
In order to pursue more education, Cairney enrolled in a few coaching courses while still in college.
However, real-world chances presented themselves, and he found himself picking up skills on the job; in short, he is self-taught and approaches scouting as if it were a trade.
