IT is a cold afternoon to kick off the month of May and John Beveridge waits patiently, if a tad reluctantly at Linen House Centre to pose for a photo to celebrate his 30^th anniversary working at St Kilda.

Beveridge is not one to draw attention to himself but has still politely agreed to a request from saints.com.au to an interview and photo to celebrate the occasion.

At this point former St Kilda and Collingwood defender Shane Wakelin pokes his head in to the room to see which star of the club is the focus of the photo shoot.

To Wakelin’s surprise, the centre of all the fuss is Beveridge – the same man who drafted him from the SANFL 21 years ago.

“I owe everything in my life to this man,” Wakelin says as he embraces the former head recruiter of the Saints who, with pick 31 at the 1992 draft picked the key position 18-year-old.

Wakelin went on to play 252 games of AFL football and now holds a position as St Kilda’s General Manager of Commercial Operations.

He, like countless other Saints along the way, have Beveridge to thank for giving him a start in football.

Beveridge now works part-time at the Saints as part of head recruiter Tony Elshaug’s team and says he enjoys the art of recruiting as much as he did when he began with the Saints in 1983.

“I never feel old and it has never been like work to me. I’ve pulled back to part-time after the 2006 draft,” he said.

Beveridge came to the Saints after coaching junior football. A position opened up as St Kilda’s development officer and he put his hand up for a new role that had no certainty about it.

“I said to my wife, it might only last three years but I want to give it a try. That’s where it started. Each VFL club had a development officer and your responsibility was to know all the good kids in your zone,” he said.

“I have a great appreciation to Ian Drake and Ian Stewart who offered me the job in the first place. From a recruiting point of view, Stewie Trott and Gerry Ryan were very good to me. The coaches have all been good to me and I think also of people like Danny Wilkins and Kevin Gurry who have been invaluable as part-time recruiters. It has been a journey that I am very blessed to have had. Hopefully there is a bit more to come.”

Recruiting has changed dramatically in Beveridge’s three decades at the Saints. Footage, stats, physical testing and psychological profiles were rare in the early days and the process is far more scientific in 2013.

Beveridge reflects on some of the challenges clubs faced in the early days of the draft.

“There was a time it wasn’t compulsory for families to release medical information. You could have had a young fella with stress fractures in his back and you wouldn’t know. Not that that ever happened to us,” he said.

“You do research them very thoroughly psychologically. It doesn’t mean that a lad who is not well educated cannot be a smart footballer. Sometimes it is the reverse – a very intelligent person may not read the game very well.”

Nowadays St Kilda’s recruiting team, like any AFL club is far-reaching and comes armed with information on any potential draft candidate.

“We’ve got three full-time recruiters now – Tony Elshaug our recruiting manager, Chris Liberatore who is terrific as a 27-year-old and Mark Barnard who has just recently joined us full-time,” he said.

“Mark did some pro-scouting for us last year and Paul Collins and I are the guys who come in a few days a week and do the footy at the weekend. Ameet Bains is our list manager and he plays an important part.”

It is a common compliment for long-term employees of a business to say that the place wouldn’t be what it is today without them.

But in Beveridge’s case it definitely the case. He was the man who had the main say over every St Kilda player drafted before 2007 and has had plenty to contribute to draft decisions since.

Asked if there was one pick along the way who stands out as his favourite, Beveridge takes time to think, as if he was being forced to nominate his favourite child.

“It’s difficult to say. If you pick someone late like Sam Fisher, it’s a bit flukey. Sam at pick 55 would have exceeded most people’s expectations. But he was a serious golfer who decided to have a crack at footy,” he said.

“There are always picks where you say we should have picked him earlier or we should have gone another way. But you don’t see them play every week.”

With 30 years service under his belt, Beveridge still gets a thrill out of identifying young talent for the Saints and his powers of observation are as sharp as ever.

But, like any good clubman he only wants to stay on if he is providing value in his role.

“If they said to me we’ve got enough staff now and we don’t need you, well I’d be comfortable with that,” he said.

In keeping with his modest nature, Beveridge finishes the interview with a typically understated self-assessment.

“I’m very happy doing what I’m doing but I don’t want to get in the road.”