  Cross-referencing a watchlist of galaxy groups and clusters with transient
detections from real-time streams of wide-field survey data is a promising
method for discovering gravitationally lensed explosive transients including
supernovae, kilonovae, gravitational waves and gamma-ray bursts in the next ten
years. However, currently there exists no catalogue of objects with both
sufficient angular extent and depth to adequately perform such a search. In
this study, we develop a cluster-finding method capable of creating an all-sky
list of galaxy group- and cluster-scale objects out to $z\simeq1$ based on
their lens-plane properties and using only existing data from wide-field
infrared surveys such as VHS and UHS, and all-sky \textit{WISE} data. In
testing this method, we recover 91 per cent of a sample containing known and
candidate lensing objects with Einstein radii of $\theta_E \geq 5\arcsec$. We
also search the surrounding regions of this test sample for other groups and
clusters using our method and verify the existence of any significant findings
by visual inspection, deriving estimates of the false positive rate that are as
low as 6 per cent. The method is also tested on simulated Rubin data from their
DP0 programme, which yields complementary results of a good recovery rate of
$\gtrsim 80$ per cent for $M_{200}\geq7\times10^{13}$M$_\odot$ clusters and
with no false positives produced in our test region. Importantly, our method is
positioned to create a watchlist in advance of Rubin's LSST, as it utilises
only existing data, therefore enabling the discovery of lensed transients early
within the survey's lifetime.
