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 Dreamdoes 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.