Every boy's dream - Chris Green

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 ofdebate. The failure of all four of the UK's national teams to reach the2008 European Championships and the ever-increasing reliance ofEngland's top clubs on foreign talent underlines an undisputable fact:that Britain now lags well behind the world's top countries inproducing the best footballers, despite having the wealthiest league inthe world and untold riches at the game's disposal. Every Boy's Dream: England's Football Future on the Line investigateswhy - despite unprecedented expenditure on a huge overhaul of youthdevelopment in the past decade - British football continues to fail tonurture top-class football talent.

With some 10,000 boys in the system at any time - and less thanone per cent of those boys likely to make it as professionalfootballers - there is a real need for a long, hard look at ourdomestic football development system. Who funds the system? How are theboys recruited? Who is responsible for their coaching and whatqualifications do they have for the job? Who looks after their welfare,ensuring they are enjoying the sport and still keeping up with theirschooling while under the clubs' stewardship? What happens when theboys don't make the cut and are released by the clubs?

Every Boy's Dreamdoes not pull any punches. Itlays the blame at the doors of the authorities in charge of youthfootball. But, rather than just listing the faults of system - whichare many, as the hard-hitting real-life examples demonstrate - itprovides tales of inspiration and a blueprint for the future of thenational game. It is the most thorough book ever written about footballyouth development, and cracks through the age-old veneer of perceivedwisdom that has stifled debate on the subject.