What Dreams are (Not Quite) Made of: No Fame, No Fortune, Just Football ... and Multiple Sclerosis Book

As much as there is such a thing as a typical footballer, he wasn't it. Tom Youngs has got A Levels chanted the Cambridge United fans about the young man who chose to appear in front of them rather than study law at Birmingham University. But in one way, he was very much an average footballer, plying his trade for ten years in Leagues One and Two, unable to deliver fully on early promise to reach the rarefied air of the Premier League or Championship. Any lingering disappointment over the premature fading of his career was brought into sharp perspective, though, when his attempts to continue in non-League were disrupted first by the discovery of advanced osteo-arthritis in his hips and then the more serious diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. This is his honest, frank account of both a life in the lower reaches of English football - detailing dressing room discomfort, contract controversies, mystifying manager meetings and much more - and the subsequent fears over the future for him and his family in the wake of his illness.Read More