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Dominic Ball is a left back who likes to overlap and whip in crosses. His dream is a familiar one: to be a professional footballer. Aged 11, fruition is years away, but he has a two-year contract with Watford’s academy. His parents, Tim and Jackie, decided to remove him from a fee-paying school in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and enrolled him at Harefield Academy from September.

Naturally, Dominic is excited; he will have more opportunities to do what he loves best – play football. Naturally, his parents are pensive. “We don’t know if it’ll work, but we’re happy to give it a go because we’d hate to be two years down the line and say, ‘We wish we’d done that’, ” Tim, a company director, said. “People worry about change, but you have to embrace it.”

If Harefield is a journey into the unknown, it will at least be a break from journeys the family know all too well: the M25 during rush hour and treks across the South East for away matches on Sunday mornings. At present, Dominic trains and plays 45 minutes away from home three or four times a week.

His 14-year-old brother, Matthew, is a midfield player linked to Norwich City and also plays basketball. Another brother, Phil, 9, plays for a local boys’ club. Without help from friends and family, ferrying them around would be almost impossible, never mind the petrol bills.

From September, a bus will collect Dominic early in the morning and drop him back home each evening, removing the hassle and much of the expense. Harefield’s holistic approach should allow Dominic more time to play and study, less time sitting in the car. At present, he plays football for about 4½ hours a week – that will treble, probably making him a better player, inching him closer to his ideal career.

As for school work? “The likelihood of the boys going on to a reasonable standard of football is low, so it’s important their education is right,” Tim Ball said. “The class looks out on the football pitch. If you’re behind, when your mates are out playing football, you’re inside doing homework. That’s quite a motivation.”

Source: TimesOnline.com