Portsmouth's remarkable star finder reveals the secret behind his outstanding list of Fratton Park successes

Despite extensive efforts, Francis Benali remains one who slipped through Pompey’s grasp.

Spotted for Hampshire Schools’ under-14s on a Testwood football pitch, the full-back and his mother were invited to Fratton Park one Saturday for talks about signing.

Following lunch at a hotel on Southsea’s seafront, the youngster was treated to a Blues Division Three match, yet wasn’t sufficiently persuaded, instead opting for home-town club Southampton.

Not that Dave Hurst regrets missing out on a player who would become synonymous with Pompey’s neighbours, amassing 389 appearances.

After all, as the Blues’ head of youth development for 25 years, his impressive eye for talent saw the recruitment of 51 future Football League players, nine internationals, three England under-21 footballers, three Pompey Half Of Fame inductees, and one Spurs Hall of Fame initiate.

It was in February 1981 when, while working full-time for Gosport plant hire company Roy Bell and serving as Basingstoke Town assistant manager, Hurst was appointed by Frank Burrows.

Charged with overhauling Pompey’s youth system and recruiting players from the age of 14, he would unearth among many the likes of Darren Anderton, Asmir Begovic, Gary O’Neil, Kit Symons, Steve Claridge, Kevin Ball, Andy Awford, Paul Hardyman, Joel Ward and Matt Ritchie.

‘People ask what you look for in a kid, but I don’t actually know,’ the 80-year-old told The News.

‘You see something and just get that feeling, it’s hard to describe, while your head’s telling you “Good Lord”. Suddenly you’re telling yourself that if perhaps we can give him this and this, then there’s every chance he’s going to be a player.

‘During my time, Pompey never invested in the infrastructure, the training facilities were never good enough, whereas Southampton was magnificent. If I could have had that at Pompey, we would have signed a lot more.

‘Instead we recruited kids on the basis of being very honest with them. This is us, this is what you get, we’ll be honest with you, we’ll make you a decent young man.

‘When I joined Pompey, Jack Smith was youth-team coach but leaving, then injured first-team player Archie Styles took over the running - only for Bobby Campbell to get rid of him as soon as he took over.

‘Bobby instead told me I had to take the youth-team, so I had 13 matches, but we needed someone full-time. One day, I went to lunch with our chief scout Derek Healey, who told me somebody was about to be employed in the job - Alan Ball.

‘I told him: “Derek, we want someone that’s going to come in and work, not live off his name”. I couldn’t have been more wrong, Bally was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

‘Back then the youth-team never won many games, I remember ringing Alan after being beaten 2-1 by Arsenal. He said “Dave you would have been proud of them today, they were terrific”. That’s what you look for with the youth-team. 

‘Yes, results are important, you don’t want to be beaten by six every week, but you want to play football in the right way and Alan certainly did that. 

‘People forget that Bally was youth-team coach for a year before he became Pompey’s manager when they sacked Bobby Campbell in May 1984.

‘Not a nice man, Bobby. Mike Neasom was once down for his usual Thursday afternoon interview with the manager and was waiting in my office, with Derek Healey and Bally also there.

‘Campbell then entered and it was disgusting how he spoke to Mike. He took exception to a match report following a heavy home defeat in the 1983-84 season, but you shouldn’t speak to people like that.

‘Afterwards I apologised to Mike and he replied: “Dave, the pen is mightier than the sword and one day I shall write his epitaph”. A few weeks later he did!

‘Bally’s name helped me so much in signing players. I saw Andy Awford play in a divisional game at Moreton-in-Marsh and 12 clubs were after him. After the match, his mum and dad had all these scouts around them and I thought “I’m not joining in”.

‘When I got home, I rang his dad, it was 11.45pm. I said “I’m really sorry it’s so late, but it’s a call I have to make. Can I come and see you to have a chat about getting Andy down to Pompey?”.

‘So I took Bally with me to Worcester, although he asked for it to be arranged on a day when Bath races were on. It turned out he had coached Andy as a 10-year-old when at Minehead Butlin’s on holiday, which really helped - then Bally went to the races in the afternoon!

‘With Darren Anderton, I spotted him playing for Southampton Schools Under-14s against Eastleigh. He was wearing the number eight shirt at the time and I watched the first half before walking around the pitch to the manager to find out who his parents were.

‘When I brought him to training for the first time, he was all arms and legs, like a giraffe, Bambi on ice, and Bally said to me “What on earth have you got there, Dave”. I said “Trust me, he can play”.

‘When it came to apprenticeships, we had already taken 10 before we decided on Darren. He was second to last out of 12 signed on. Me and Peter Osgood pushed it, Graham Paddon and Bally weren’t that keen.

‘When he passed the ball, it probably never got to where he wanted it because he didn’t have the strength. When you look at these kids you have to visualise that, when he’s stronger, he will get that ball to where he wants. You have to look beyond what is actually there at that moment in time.

‘That group once went to a tournament in Belgium and I received a phone call after midnight informing me they were being sent home. It turned out Darryl Powell had launched a corner flag at the opposition, turning it into a riot!’

During Hurst’s opening two years at Fratton Park, he handed scholarships to five players who would have distinguished Football League careers - Paul Wimbleton, Paul Wood, Kevin Ball, Steve Claridge and Paul Hardyman.

Hardyman would earn two England under-21 appearances and featured in the 1992 FA Cup final for Sunderland, coincidentally the same club where Ball is afforded legendary status after captaining them in the Premier League.

As for Claridge, during a highly successful playing career he later became Pompey’s player-manager and has been inducted in the club’s Hall of Fame - despite Bobby Campbell refusing to give him a pro deal at Fratton Park.

Hurst added: ‘Prior to Liam Daish’s Pompey debut as a 18-year-old, I stood next to Bally watching him play a match at Pitt Street, where Morrison’s is now.

‘I said to Bally “Do you know Alan, I think we should give him a year just to find out”. He replied “Nah, he will never be a player as long as his backside looks down”. That was Alan’s problem, he used to make instant decisions on kids.

‘Mind you, Bobby Campbell couldn't wait to get rid of Steve Claridge. Frank Burrows was manager when we wrote the letters informing the boys who would be offered apprenticeship terms, which had to be sent by March 1 every year.

‘When Frank was sacked weeks later, Bobby came in and didn’t fancy him, wanting to withdraw the offer. I stood my ground, we had already written to Steve telling him he had one. To me he was a good footballer, although an idiot off the pitch, one sock halfway up and no shin pads.

‘After 18 months as an apprentice, Steve and his parents were invited to a meeting and informed by Bobby he wouldn’t be kept on. Then his mum pulled out all these newspaper cuttings from The News which praised Steve!

‘That same year was Kevin Ball and Paul Hardyman. Peter Sillett, John Sillett’s brother, rang up about Kevin, who had just been released by Coventry. You couldn't help but like him. He wasn’t a great footballer, he would kick it, head it. He would kick you - but always be looking at you when he did it, never behind your back!

‘Paul was spotted at a trial, I was there with Gordon Neave and he was decent. However, he was just starting an apprenticeship as a carpenter in Gosport, so I couldn’t take him as an apprentice, instead it was on non-contract terms. And we had to ask his boss for permission to leave early for midweek games!

‘I remember having Paul Wood and playing at Norwich in the south-east counties league. He was right-wing and the ball must have gone under his foot three times, so enough was enough, I replaced him with a big centre-half called John Wilson and put him up front instead.

‘Afterwards Paul asked to see the manager to complain about me taking him off. Bobby told him “Just go and grow up lad”.’

Harry Redknapp’s appointment as manager in March 2002 and subsequent success would apply the brakes to home-grown talent being blooded into the first-team environment.

Rowan Vine, Lewis Buxton and Shaun Cooper all slipped out of the frame before leaving Fratton Park, while James Keene briefly emerged, with two outings, only to move to Swedish club Elfsborg in 2007.

Yet Redknapp had departed by the time future internationals Asmir Begovic (Bosnia & Herzegovina) and Marc Wilson (Republic of Ireland) graduated into the Blues’ side.

Hurst’s final Academy crop was in 2006, when Matt Ritchie and Joel Ward were handed two-year scholarships - and both are still in the Premier League.

Hurst said: ‘Marc Wilson was only a little dot when I brought him in from Lisburn, but he could play football, that was the most important thing.

‘I made arrangements to go over to meet his parents and noticed his brothers were 6ft 3in and 6ft 4in, so I thought there was every chance he’d grow. He finished up 6ft 2in.

‘Some kids are what I call “Bad shape”, with short little legs and will never be footballers. If they are long between their ankle and the hip then they’re going to be tall. It’s little things like that.

‘Marc was in the same age group at Pompey as Asmir Begovic, who was never scouted but brought to my attention by a phone call from an agent called Will Shirley, who asked if I would be interested in looking at him for two weeks.

‘He was flying in from Canada, Pompey wouldn’t have to pay the airfare, and I met him at the airport. Only for him to tell me he’d also be trialling at Spurs while over here: “It’s all arranged”.

‘Asmir trained with us on the Monday and Mark O’Connor, our youth-team coach, afterwards rang me: “This lad is absolutely a different class”. So the following day, I went down to watch him train - and agreed.

‘Immediately we had Asmir in the dressing room and told him we’d offer him a contract, but he couldn’t trial at Spurs. We knew if he did we wouldn’t have got him.

‘I was taking a chance, we’d only seen him in a couple of training sessions, no games or anything. But we got him!

‘My last group of apprentices was in 2006 - and contained Matt Ritchie and Joel Ward.

‘I was at a tournament at Monkton, Gosport, when Tony Harris alerted me to a blonde-haired eight-year-old playing. Matt was terrific. Later at 14, I promised him he’d get his apprenticeship at 16 because I was aware Southampton wanted him.

‘Joel comes from a very religious family and his parents wouldn’t let him play Sundays, so I came to an agreement that he’d play one Sunday a month. There were lots of parents quite angry at this as he would come straight into the team.

‘When it came to offering an apprenticeship, the last spot was between Joel and another lad. He didn’t have as much football as the other kids, but always gave 110 per cent and I had the feeling that, if given the opportunity, he would make himself a player, but the other two coaches wanted the other lad. I pulled rank and chose Joel.’

After retiring as head of youth recruitment in 2006, Hurst served another four years as a scout.

Following time at Stoke City, he was back at Fratton Park in 2011, briefly working as an unpaid youth scout under Andy Awford, the player he brought to the club in 1986.

After 30 years with Pompey, Hurst now devotes his time to his cherished Brockhurst allotment, where he grows 25 different varieties of vegetables, and oversees a fruit cage consisting of strawberries and raspberries.

Inevitably, though, football remains a constant and he is a regular attendee at Gosport matches, serving as a director on Iain McInnes’ board.

He added: ‘The budget in my final year in 2006 was £600,000, which included digs, wages, everything.

‘When Paul Hart was in charge of the youth set-up, they once spent £3.6m in one year. There were two French boys, one from Le Havre and the other Paris Saint-Germain, earning £1,700 a week as 17-year-olds. How can you justify that, that’s not good for the boys.

‘In youth development, you can have all the best coaches, but if they haven’t got quality to work with, what’s the point?

‘During my time, you made use of what you were given. You can’t just get a lad and make him into a footballer - we were fortunate to have some very, very good players at Pompey.’