All football clubs have scouts: men (for they are almost always men) who watch teams to check how they play, who watch players to see how good they are. Les Padfield, though, is not your typical scout. Not many scouts are also published poets! A Londoner, he was a schoolboy footballer of great promise but then chose to become a teacher of Physical Education and English. He became a scout when, having been persuaded to attend a match at Millwall, he met an old friend, John Sainty - the chief scout at Preston North End. This is his fascinating and unusual story.