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Every Boy's Dream: England's Football Future on the Line
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 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 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.
- GenresFootball
224 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 4, 2021
Great behind-the-scenes insight into the reality of every boy's dream to become a professional footballer.
May 5, 2020
Concerned radio producer worries for the parched pitches of Britain. Written in 2010, I think people listened to him.
November 5, 2010
Much has been written about the Gael Kakuta case which has led to the ban on transfer dealings that has been imposed on Chelsea. There has been debate about whether the decision was too harsh or not; others have focused on going over Chelsea's actions to see whether they were right in what they did or not.
What has escaped most people's attention is why they've acted in that way. Why is it that all the big clubs (and the not so big ones) feel compelled to go raiding across Europe in order to find young players with which to load their reserves? Isn't that the reason why they spend so much money on their own academies?
Ten years down the line from the publication of Howard Wilkinson's 'Charter for Quality' that set up the academy system, England should be flush with promising young players coming through the ranks. Instead, the likes of Jack Wilshire are the exception rather than the rule. With the cost of getting things wrong being that of missing out on the Premiership's millions few managers are willing to risk their future by giving young players a chance with the temptation of going for cheap imports being too strong to resist.
Or, at least, that is what normally gets blamed for the evident lack of results and what Chris Green tries to confirm in his book 'Every Boy's Dream'. What he finds out is that, whilst there is a lack of opportunites out there, it is only one of the reasons for the declining number of local players; it is only one element of a much larger and more complex issue.
By talking with a whole host of experts in the field of youth development, as well as some players who have been chewed up and spit out by the system, he slowly starts piecing together the various reasons for the system's failure. Some of these are to be expected - lack of money lower down the league structure for instance - but many will inevitably shock because quite simply the expectations being placed on young children are, frankly, unacceptable.
The risk that such books run is that they become over-bearing, that the doom suffocates the initial interest that there is. Green avoids this by skillfully managing the pace of his writing, alternating between moments that are laden with serious thoughts and others where the writing takes a more personal tone which, as a result, make the whole piece a lighter read.
Green also looks beyond the conventional boundaries of academy football by talking to those who are doing things their own way. He looks, for instance, at the ideas behind the Give Us Back Our Game project that aims to let the children auto-regulate themselves rather than impose rigid the kill off all the fun. Again, these lighten the mood but also offer a genuine alternative for the game.
The end result is a fine piece of work and as exhaustive a look at the state of English football as you're likely to come across. Yet, reading it I couldn't avoid the nagging question about whether, despite all the negative aspects of youth football that Green uncovers, we as fans are really bothered about it. Does it really matter if the big clubs prey on the smaller ones, if the children are put under undue pressure or if the academic side of thing is pushed aside? The sad truth is that the answer most probably is a negative one.
Which makes Every Boy's Dream all the more important for it looks into areas that we're not normally bothered about and asks the questions that we should be asking. For those reasons alone, it is a vital read.
What has escaped most people's attention is why they've acted in that way. Why is it that all the big clubs (and the not so big ones) feel compelled to go raiding across Europe in order to find young players with which to load their reserves? Isn't that the reason why they spend so much money on their own academies?
Ten years down the line from the publication of Howard Wilkinson's 'Charter for Quality' that set up the academy system, England should be flush with promising young players coming through the ranks. Instead, the likes of Jack Wilshire are the exception rather than the rule. With the cost of getting things wrong being that of missing out on the Premiership's millions few managers are willing to risk their future by giving young players a chance with the temptation of going for cheap imports being too strong to resist.
Or, at least, that is what normally gets blamed for the evident lack of results and what Chris Green tries to confirm in his book 'Every Boy's Dream'. What he finds out is that, whilst there is a lack of opportunites out there, it is only one of the reasons for the declining number of local players; it is only one element of a much larger and more complex issue.
By talking with a whole host of experts in the field of youth development, as well as some players who have been chewed up and spit out by the system, he slowly starts piecing together the various reasons for the system's failure. Some of these are to be expected - lack of money lower down the league structure for instance - but many will inevitably shock because quite simply the expectations being placed on young children are, frankly, unacceptable.
The risk that such books run is that they become over-bearing, that the doom suffocates the initial interest that there is. Green avoids this by skillfully managing the pace of his writing, alternating between moments that are laden with serious thoughts and others where the writing takes a more personal tone which, as a result, make the whole piece a lighter read.
Green also looks beyond the conventional boundaries of academy football by talking to those who are doing things their own way. He looks, for instance, at the ideas behind the Give Us Back Our Game project that aims to let the children auto-regulate themselves rather than impose rigid the kill off all the fun. Again, these lighten the mood but also offer a genuine alternative for the game.
The end result is a fine piece of work and as exhaustive a look at the state of English football as you're likely to come across. Yet, reading it I couldn't avoid the nagging question about whether, despite all the negative aspects of youth football that Green uncovers, we as fans are really bothered about it. Does it really matter if the big clubs prey on the smaller ones, if the children are put under undue pressure or if the academic side of thing is pushed aside? The sad truth is that the answer most probably is a negative one.
Which makes Every Boy's Dream all the more important for it looks into areas that we're not normally bothered about and asks the questions that we should be asking. For those reasons alone, it is a vital read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews