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As a kid, I admit I never thought about becoming a professional footballer, even for Everton. I dreamed about scoring goals, and about the Blues winning games,

like most other kids – although I’m sure they don’t alldream about Everton. It honestly never entered my head that I could possibly be a real player. However, one day, when I was aged nine playing for Copplehouse, it turned out that scouts from both Liverpool and Everton were watching the game. After the match, the Liverpool scout approached my dad and asked me if I’d like to have a trial. So two days later, after school, I went along to Melwood, Liverpool’s training ground. I don’t recall who took me – but I know I was wearing my Everton kit.

Unfortunately, I didn’t hit it off with the Liverpool coaches who were a bit funny towards me. I don’t know why, but perhaps it had something to do with wearing the Everton colours. I didn’t wear the shirt as a defiant gesture, I just always wore it. After school, I lived in my Everton shirt. There were about 30 kids at the hour-long trial, all aged around nine. We practised our skills and technique, then we had some five-a-side games. I must have impressed some of them because, afterwards, I was asked to attend another trial the following week. Naturally, I said yes. In the meantime, my dad received a phone call from Bob Pendleton, the Everton scout who had seen me play for Copplehouse. Everton also wanted me to attend a trial – but it was scheduled for the same evening as my second Liverpool trial. Despite that, I went to Bellefield, Everton’s training ground, rather than Liverpool’s. That was that. Once Everton had appeared interested there was no choice to be had. Dad came with me on the bus, secretly hoping to meet Joe Royle, the then Everton manager.

It was a similar sort of trial, with about 30 kids taking part in skills exercises, but this time I loved everything about it: the people, the coaches and the atmosphere. There were, of course, loads of other kids, like me, who had turned up in their Everton shirts. To be fair, Liverpool had probably been just as good to me and I felt my trial with them had gone well. But, being all emotional about Everton, I decided they were so much better and I felt more at home with them. Straight after that first Everton trial, the club spoke to my dad, and asked him there and then if I would sign schoolboy forms. Of course, we said yes. Had Liverpool asked me to sign first and not have another trial, then I’m sure I would have signed for them and been a ‘Red’. I think their system was to ask you along to several trials before deciding whether or not to make an offer. Or perhaps they simply weren’t sure about me.

Anyway, that was that. Aged nine, I was about to join Everton. I rushed home from Bellefield to tell my mum. She wasn’t in as she’d gone to church, the Queen of Martyrs, to take part in a rehearsal for Graeme’s communion. She happened to be sitting next to Franny Jeffers’s mother as I ran in, and when I told her my news she burst into tears. Franny, like me, attended De La Salle secondary school, lived locally, and went on to play for Everton – as had, earlier on, Mick Lyons and Paul Jewell, now manager of Wigan. But, being four years older than me, I never actually came across Franny at school as he left just as I arrived. I went and told all my mates who were well chuffed for me. To celebrate, we had a kick-around in the street as usual.

I received the official letter from Everton a few days later, in April 1995, and which my mum still has. The club offered me a place for the 1995/96 season at their Centre of Excellence as it was called in those days; later, while I was still there, it became the Everton Football Academy. The letter said how pleased they were with me, that I would form part of ‘our special group of Centre of Excellence players’ and that I had to ‘set and maintain excellent examples to fellow pupils at school and clubs.’

All that summer I remember being so excited, hardly able to wait for the new season to begin. I suppose it was only then, knowing I had joined Everton as a school boy, that I began to think I might actually become a professional footballer. Grown-ups started telling me that if I worked hard and practised I could make it. Someone has to, so why not me? I suppose hundreds, if not thousands, of kids think that every year. I started with Everton, at nine, with 15 other boys of my age and we were classed as the Under-10s. As with all Academies, which most professional clubs now have, players of the same year stick together for training sessions and don’t mix with the other years, far less the professional players. Hopefully, you then progress through the years. It’s like school in that sense, with tests and assessments at the end of each year; except that, unlike school, you get kicked out for good if you don’t do well enough. I attended training three times a week after school, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 5 to 6.30pm.

Sunday mornings saw us play against an Academy side of our age group from another club in the North West. If we were playing away, we got picked up by a coach at Bellefield. Each session, my dad or mum took me to Bellefield. In the early years, when we didn’t have a car, we went on the bus or walked as it wasn’t too far away. They would then wait to bring me back. Parents have to be as keen as their kids, making sure they turn up on time, and with the right kit. Some, of course, are even keener than their kids, shouting and screaming on the touchline. I owe a lot to my parents, as well as to Everton, for all their years of support, trailing back and forth with me. After football training, I also went boxing. At roughly the same time as I started with Everton I joined a boys’ boxing club, run by my Uncle Ritchie, dad’s brother, at Croxteth Sports Centre. We just did sparring and training. I enjoyed it and although I never actually fought in any matches, I was good at attacking people and had a strong punch.

I loved the football training. We learned a lot of technical skills, like kicking the ball with the outside of the foot. I’m naturally right-footed, and the coaches worked on my left, so I would be able to use that just as well. I was about average size and weight, but some of the kids in the Everton Under-10s were much bigger than me. There were also one or two whom I thought were better than me, such as Joseph Jones, a calm midfielder and a very good passer of the ball. However, seeing one or two kids who were better made me try even harder. I wanted to show off what skills I had and so became very ball-greedy. I went for goal whenever I could and wouldn’t pass. The coaches would shout at me, ‘Lay it off!’ while my dad shouted ‘Take him on!’ Instead, I would do neither: I’d let rip a shot from the edge of the area and try to score from 30 yards. Which I often did. It was all part of trying to impress, to show them how good I was. At the end of that first year at Everton, each of us received a written assessment; I was adjudged ‘Very Good’ for control, passing, stamina, strength, speed and

positional sense. Under the heading of Attitude the report said, ‘Does listen, but he dreams about goals, and everything is geared to the back of the net. Great will to win and Wayne has made efforts to work on his build-up play.’ Under Progress and Overall Observations, it remarked, ‘Works hard and listens to the coaches. Buildup play is coming on and his left side is developing well. Great motivation and the best natural goalscorer I’ve seen. Technically, he does things ahead of his years and has good fast feet. Hope he develops physically and does

not get overplayed.’ The assessment was stamped by Ray Hall, the Youth Development officer, but hand-written by Andy Windsor, one of the coaches. During that first season playing for Everton’s Centre of Excellence Under-10 team and sometimes the Under-11s, dad kept a detailed record of all the games I took part in. I wasn’t really aware at the time that he was doing that. Now, looking at it, it’s amazingly neat, though he can’t spell ‘Anglesy’ [sic]. I played 30 games, against other Centres of Excellence in Lancashire, North Wales and Yorkshire and scored in each one. Against Preston, whom we beat 15–0, I grabbed nine goals, bagged eight in a 10–5 drubbing of Leeds, and six as we beat Manchester United 12–2. I played against Liverpool twice, and on each occasion for our Under-11s. They beat us once 6–2 and then we defeated them 4–3 and I scored twice in each game. All together that season, I netted a total of 114 goals. The only match I remember now, of those 30, was against Manchester United, when we hammered them 12–2 and I scored with an overhead kick from the edge of the box. Around the pitch were all the parents,

with Everton on one side and Manchester United on the other. When I scored, I heard both sets of parents start clapping. That’s why I’ll always remember that day.

After that first year I received another official letter from the club, in March 1996, saying they were keeping me on for another season. Interestingly, the wording was exactly the same as in the previous letter, all about being ‘part of a special group’ and having to ‘maintain excellent examples to fellow pupils’. The standard wording

if you got through, I guess. When I began that second season, I was thrilled to find I’d been promoted. Instead of being with the Under-11s, as I’d expected, I had jumped two years and was put with the Under-12s. At the time, when that new season began in August 1996, I was still only 10 years old. Every season, in each year group, there are five or six kids who get released. It’s done quietly, one to one, with the youngster and his parents being taken aside from the rest of the group. It’s only later that you realise that certain kids have gone when they are no longer turning up. Joseph Jones, for one, did make it through with me each year, until the very end. The Everton Academy, like most others, has nine years, right up to Under-19, which usually means a total of 140 boys attend the Academy at any one time guided by 24 full-time staff. I’m told it works out at a cost of £10,000 a year for each boy – most of whom never make it.

Up to the age of 16, the Academy boys are not paid, of course, although their parents may get traveling expenses for long-distance games plus a few first-team

tickets every season. It’s not just a matter of basic talent, or even keenness and dedication, that decides who will come through. Boys grow and develop at different times, in different ways. The big problem comes when a youngster reaches 13 or 14. Other distractions come along: they want to go out with their mates or chase girls. They want to do loads of other things with their spare time, play with computers or whatever, rather than trail across town in the dark on a cold winter’s evening to train. With me, though, once I got started I only ever lived for football.