Short listed for the Best Football Book in the 2010 British Sport Book Awards
The way Britain develops its top football talent is a hot topic of
debate. The failure of all four of the UK's national teams to reach the
2008 European Championships and the ever-increasing reliance of
England's top clubs on foreign talent underlines an undisputable fact:
that Britain now lags well behind the world's top countries in
producing the best footballers, despite having the wealthiest league in
the world and untold riches at the game's disposal. Every Boy's Dream: England's Football Future on the Line investigates
why — despite unprecedented expenditure on a huge overhaul of youth
development in the past decade — British football continues to fail to
nurture top-class football talent.
With some 10,000 boys in the system at any time — and less than
one per cent of those boys likely to make it as professional
footballers — there is a real need for a long, hard look at our
domestic football development system. Who funds the system? How are the
boys recruited? Who is responsible for their coaching and what
qualifications do they have for the job? Who looks after their welfare,
ensuring they are enjoying the sport and still keeping up with their
schooling while under the clubs' stewardship? What happens when the
boys don't make the cut and are released by the clubs?
Every Boy's Dream does not pull any punches. It
lays the blame at the doors of the authorities in charge of youth
football. But, rather than just listing the faults of system — which
are many, as the hard-hitting real-life examples demonstrate — it
provides tales of inspiration and a blueprint for the future of the
national game. It is the most thorough book ever written about football
youth development, and cracks through the age-old veneer of perceived
wisdom that has stifled debate on the subject.
