Peter Chadwick was watching in disbelief as Jamie Vardy went on that incredible 11-game scoring run to beat Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Premier League record when an idea struck him.
Vardy’s feat was amplified by a back story which involved coming up through non-league and not hitting the top-flight heights until he was 27. But – surely – there couldn’t be just one, Chadwick wondered.
Fast forward a decade and that question has spawned, thanks to exhaustive work, countless spreadsheets and hours spent trawling the country in a car, with Chadwick’s Non-League Gems (NLG) platform now revolutionising transfers from the lower leagues.
He is convincing Premier League clubs – and sides throughout the professional pyramid – that there is an untapped reserve of talent in non-league, and that he has found the formula to discover the next Vardy.
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This summer, several players that he has sourced for clients will move to clubs in the Premier League and EFL.
We will get to that in a moment, but how 31-year-old Chadwick reached this point is a story of resilience, perseverance and sacrificing everything to chase a dream that is worth hearing.
In his early 20s, Chadwick was working for a sports law firm in Surrey when he became obsessed with non-league football and its potential. He had moved away from friends for work and was living with an older couple and, wanting to get out the house, started going to games.
He wanted to tell people about the talent he saw and, not sure what else to do, started posting on Twitter. And people started following. People with club names and words such as “scout” in their bios.
The first time that Chadwick realised the power of his knowledge, long before he developed a unique platform now being used by several Premier League clubs, was when he recommended a player to Hamilton Academical.
Mickel Miller was flying in the eighth tier, at Carshalton Athletic, when Chadwick met Keith Glendinning, Hamilton’s technical analyst, who said he needed a scoring winger. On Chadwick’s recommendation, Glendinning flew to England, watched Miller score twice in the first half, then signed him.
Mickel Miller was unearthed by Peter Chadwick and now plays for Huddersfield (Photo: Getty)Chadwick’s name got around and for several years he was “consulting” – inverted commas he puts on the word himself – with clubs everywhere. They’d invite him for a tour and lunch, then pepper him with questions.
The problem? He wasn’t earning a penny. He’d help players get moves, watch clubs sign players he’d suggested, but not get a cut of any deal.
At the end of a meeting with a Leeds United recruiter, the guy shook his hand and said: “You’re very brave. I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
Chadwick would go to conferences, desperate to meet people, for a foot in the door, and be ignored. He felt like an outsider.
Meanwhile, he was promoting players such as Max Kilman, who went on to sign for Wolves from Maidenhead for £40,000 and was sold to West Ham for £40m six years later. Kilman remainers a follower.
Martial Godo, now an ambassador for the company, used to message him asking to share his highlights while he played at Dartford and Margate. The winger went on to move to Fulham in 2022, has since played in the Premier League and has now been called up to the Ivory Coast Under-23s.
Champion of The Non-League Pathway
Delighted to announce @GodoMartial as a NLG Ambassador to champion the non-league pathway & inspire the next generation of non-league talent@margate_fc to @england u20 in less than 2 years… Why can’t you be next?
Welcome to the team Martial pic.twitter.com/1qioNGAnWt
— Non-League Gems (@Non_LeagueGems) April 7, 2024
“The non-league pathway is a legitimate route into professional football,” Chadwick says. “The misjudgement of the market is that one or two slip through the net. It’s not the case.
“From Jarrod Bowen, Dan Burn, Tyrone Mings, Jamie Vardy, going back to Ian Wright and Les Ferdinand, and beyond. People never connected the dots. Snobbery in football turned people away.”
Chadwick was adamant he was on to something, but the pursuit of what that might be took its toll. He’d quit his job, moved back in with his parents, was driving around the country, working with a pool of amateur scouts – keen non-league season-ticket holders who sent him reports.
He earned a little money from representing a few players, but didn’t want to be an agent.
After five years, he almost threw it all away. Covid hit, football stopped, and Chadwick thought: what am I doing with my life?
“I’d gone from a top law firm to chasing this dream. But I knew the industry would carry on whether I returned or not.”
Jarrod Bowen and Dan Burn have both gone from non-league to the Premier League (Photo: Getty)But he couldn’t let go. He wanted to know why around half of transfers from non-league to professional clubs made it, and half didn’t.
What made one move a multi-million-pound asset and another a failed investment?
If he could just compile a database and identify the trends, he could crack the code.
So, he opened a spreadsheet and started the most painstaking of tasks – compiling 126 data points on almost a thousand transfers from non-league to professional clubs in the previous 15 years.
Some days, he’d work from 7am to 2am. Finding snippets of information on where a player was from, their age, working out one player’s height based on a photograph of them standing next to another player whose height was revealed on a club website.
It took a year. When he’d finally finished, he sat back and surveyed his work. And found no trends. It was devastating. But he left it for a while, came back and realised he’d struck gold.
Much of the data he’d compiled was, he says, irrelevant. But there was a secret formula hidden within. He explains it to me, but asks that it not be published in case it is ripped off.
Even then, he still needed a vast database of current non-league players to spot those trends in them. And one didn’t exist. Information was out there, but scant and fragmented.
From the Essex Senior League to the Sky Bet League One Player of the Season in 18 months.@richardkone17 is an inspiration. pic.twitter.com/iZxVHvgyX2
— Wycombe Wanderers (@wwfcofficial) April 27, 2025
He started pulling some together, but there was too much. There were 20,000 players in non-league.
He believed that a tech expert might be able to solve the problem, put out adverts, interviewed data scientists from Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the London Business School (LBS).
They all told him that what he wanted was impossible, until the last interview with Marc Medlej, studying for an MBA at the LBS and previously a student at Le Wagon, a coding bootcamp. Chadwick said that he couldn’t pay him, that it would probably take a few weeks and might be good for his CV.
Medlej came back a few days later and had done it. The system was crude and ugly, but it was a working system. He became co-founder.
The first contract they signed was with Huddersfield. The first player they moved to the Premier League was Brody Peart, who signed for Brighton from Basingstoke in 2023.
They are now placing players everywhere. Wycombe have signed eight players through them. In one game last season, five of them were on the pitch together.
At one stage, Chadwick was introduced to Adie Mings, a Manchester City scout who spent a decade at Chelsea and is the father of Tyrone.
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Tyrone fits the perfect profile of a Non-League Gem and Chadwick says that Adie has been incredibly supportive.
A while ago, before it all progressed, Adie secured him meetings at Chelsea and Manchester City, but they kept saying that clubs that size were not interested.
But the landscape is shifting. The tightening of financial restrictions and lack of access to the European youth market, due to Brexit, has forced eyes and algorithms to focus further afield – such as South America – and closer to home: the young players getting first-team minutes outside the professional game.
“A lot of clubs get caught in churn of buying players on a downward trajectory,” Chadwick says. “Mentally they aren’t in the right space.”
“Players let go by the leading academies, expecting big wages, unused to the facilities, the styles of play, the grind.
“Where can you find inexpensive emerging talent that fit the trend of previously successful transfers, who will be over moon to sign on low wages, to train with you, who fly into tackles?
“We offer a predictive-model scouting tool to find the next multi-million-pound player from non-league.”
Chadwick is trying to open eyes to the fact that non-league isn’t – and, in fact, never has been – about beer bellies and past-its.
Stop THAT Raees Bangura-Williams
Casper De Norre is there to finish it off but just look at this assist pic.twitter.com/yqOTorkReQ
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) January 21, 2025
Every summer, Non-League Gems hosts a showcase game for clients based on their database. In 2023, they selected an 18-year-old Tooting & Mitcham attacking midfielder called Ra’ees Bangura-Williams. Millwall signed him. Last month, he made his debut for England Under-20s.
There are, Chadwick says, more players in England’s Under-20s and-21s who came through non-league than Premier League academies now. “The most precious commodity for players is first-team minutes nowadays.”
Chadwick can tell you how many minutes they are getting – and everything else you need to know about them.
Chadwick’s six non-league gems to watch
Phil Croker, 18, centre-back – Oxford City – National League North – Step 2
“One of the most exciting centre-backs in non-league football: 6ft 3ins, powerful and technically gifted.
“Playing 14 times in the National League North this season at 18 makes him an outlier and a very exciting prospect.
“It’s hard getting minutes as a teenager at that level because it’s a very physical division with loads of ex-pros.”
Riley Carr, 16, winger – Hertford Town – Southern League Division One Central – Step 4
“Playing over 2,200 league minutes under age 17 in men’s football is incredible. He scored eight goals, too.
“A big player in Hertford Town’s FA Youth Cup run as they beat Bristol Rovers and Cambridge United Under-18s. They also gave Arsenal Under-18s a good game, losing 4-3.”
Ralph Vigrass, 19, winger – Dagenham & Redbridge – National League (relegated to National League South) Step 1 / Step 2
“Ralph finished a great loan at Walton & Hersham, scoring seven goals in 20 appearances and now returns to Dagenham, who have gone down a division, meaning he should be trusted as a key first-team player.”
Ethan Wright, 18, left-back – Tavistock – Southern League Division One South – Step 4
“He’s played 81 senior non-league games at the age of 18. He is a left-footed modern wing-back who combines pace and power.
“He’s good at tackling, crossing and is positive in possession. Ethan is possibly only in the non-leagues due to geography reasons and not many professional clubs being down his way.”
Louie Carr, 18, central midfielder – Hertford Town – Southern League Division One Central – Step 4
“A tenacious, left-footed midfielder, progressive with the ball, aggressive in the tackle and with a good engine.
“He was man of the match in the NLG showcase event in May 2025, winning a year-long boot deal with Skechers.” No relation to Riley Carr.
Morgan Laws-Randall, 16, centre-back – Arlesey Town – Step 5
“Morgan was a standout player at the NLG showcase game. He the youngest and least experienced, but was one of the best physically, technically and tactically.”
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