BOB PAISLEY OFFERED ME A JOB.. BUT I TOLD HIM TO F*** OFF!

AS one of football’s great characters, Paul Molesworth is renowned on the scouting circuit having worked at 13 different clubs from Swindon to Bristol Rovers and Swansea to Morton.

But his route into the game would be unthinkable now and got off to a rocky start.

Molesworth sent a total of 69 recommendations to Liverpool’s former chief scout Geoff Twentyman and, despite not signing any of them, they were impressed enough to invite him up to Melwood and gave him a job as Midlands scout on the strength of it.

“I sent all these letters and never had a reply,” he said.

“Then, one Friday, about 11.30am, the phone was ringing.

“I was jet-lagged, I’d just come back from Canada and picked up the phone and it was Bob Paisley. He said: ‘It’s Bob Paisley, Liverpool Football Club’.

“I told him to f*** off and stop messing around. He rang straight back. I said, ‘You do sound a bit like Bob Paisley’. He said, ‘That’s because I bloody well am!’”

Molesworth’s first scouting mission for Liverpool at Aston Villa got off to an equally awkward start.

He said: “I invited a mate along and there we were with our wedge haircuts, moustaches and Tacchini tracksuits, rubbing shoulders with Doug Ellis. Everyone else was in a suit and tie – and there’s us two scallies!”

He added: “I was at Liverpool for 12 years, I recommended David Burrows and Ray Houghton (above). I saw Ray playing for Oxford and thought he’d fit the way Liverpool played. Kenny Dalglish, who wanted John Sheridan, called and said, ‘It’s the boss. I want to sign John Sheridan, not Ray Houghton’.

“I just told him to sign him then. But I think he liked the fact I stood up for myself and they watched them in an Ireland game and signed Houghton.”