Hope, exhaustion and heartbreak: My journey through a Premier League club's academy system

At 16, Owen Wheeler was rubbing shoulders with Luis Suarez and his childhood hero Steven Gerrard.

At 18, he was living with embarrassment and feared he had let his family down after being released by Liverpool Football Club.

“I had a few breakdowns to my mum,” he recalls. “But they were few and far between because I felt like I had let everyone down. I was embarrassed.”

Now 24, he plays in the eighth tier of English football in front of few-dozen fans and is responsible for washing his own kit, as he balances his restored love for the game with his day job as a PE teacher.

English football’s academy system has entered a period of self-reflection in recent years after countless teenagers have endured torrid physiological battles upon their release from elite-level clubs.

It was just two years ago that former Manchester City youth team player Jeremy Wisten tragically took his own life after “not receiving the right support at Manchester City to find a new club,” according to his father.

Wisten’s death evoked an increased awareness of the mental exhaustion placed on young, aspiring footballers, prompting professional football clubs across England to enhance the welfare packages on offer to those who fail to make the jump into the professional game.

Just three per cent of the 4,106 players signed to Category One status Premier League clubs - now aged between 21-26 – managed to make a Premier League appearance, according to figures obtained by the i newspaper.

Wheeler is in the 97 per cent.

The 24-year-old Liverpudlian, who grew up in the threadbare town of Halewood, has already endured a football career packed with enough narratives to serve many walks of life. By his own admission, it’s been an extraordinary rollercoaster.

His story is one – just like the millions of other hopeful prodigies across the country - filled with love, anger, adversity, exhaustion and most commonly heartbreak. 

Having grown up in one of the country’s most football-centric cities, Wheeler was no different and his affection for the game blossomed from an early age due to his older brother, father, and uncle who played for Liverpool over 200 times, Steve McMahon.

It wasn't long before he would follow in the footsteps of some of his favourite Anfield icons; Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler as Liverpool Football Club invited him to take part in their youth set-up while he was still in primary school.

Wheeler would complete three years at Liverpool's famed academy in Kirkby - with a spell in the club’s Development Centre - before penning official forms with the club at just nine years of age. He then decided to join city rivals, Everton, until the age of 13.

That’s when the sacrifices started, even at such a tender age. Friends’ birthday parties would be missed, time playing out with his mates would diminish and everything started to become a little bit more serious. All in devotion to his innocent love for the game.

It’s a path many youngsters find themselves treading during the fledgling stages of their careers, usually training three times a week in addition to playing fixtures in far-flung locations across the country. 

But for Wheeler, it was all he knew. 

“Liverpool were with Adidas at the time,'' he says recalling the moment his dearest pastime started to become more serious than just a harmless kickabout.

“We were getting two brand new pairs of boots, with your names on them. That’s when I first noticed [the seriousness], I’d say.”

In recent years, the morality around academy football in England has been questioned as a result of how vulnerable juveniles are treated from the moment they first sign along the dotted lines. In most circumstances, spending in excess of ten years involved in a distorted environment that fails to prepare them for the ‘real world’, before being swiftly discarded before they even turn 18. 

Usually leaving in a more vulnerable state than the one they arrived in.

Earlier this year Crystal Palace became the first Premier League side to launch an enhanced aftercare system for released players aged 18-23. As part of the programme, a player officer stays in regular contact with the players who fail to make the grade at Selhurst Park. The aim is to help their former players secure new football clubs, and jobs, or even explore the options of heading back into full-time education. 

And Palace’s Chairman Steve Parish has vowed to increase the quality of the human beings who walk out the door of the Selhurst Park too, rather than just the footballers.

“They will obviously develop as footballers, but also as young men, being taught a range of hugely beneficial life skills, “ he said speaking at the launch of the Eagles’ enhanced aftercare scheme in January.

But for one father of a current academy player, who wanted to remain anonymous, it’s a move long overdue. He believes Premier League clubs have been getting away with their mistreatment of released players for too long.

“The ‘bigger clubs’ get away with it more because when they release a player there is usually another club further down the football pyramid willing to sign them, based on their pedigree of where they have come from, and how long they have been there,” he says. 

He adds: “The smaller academies don't have that option and I don't think they are doing enough to provide them with other opportunities upon being released. Whether that be gaining coaching badges or any different path from being a footballer.”

That has become the sobering reality for the vast number of hopefuls worldwide, which has led to the father having no choice but to raise the discussion of rejection to his football-obsessed son - who is just 13-years old.

“I have always tried to make him aware that the likelihood of making it into a career in football is really slim,” he reveals.

“A rejection would be devastating for all those involved in his journey as a result of the impact it can have on his siblings, mums, and dads. Along with the sacrifices everyone has to make to try and achieve their goals.

"The moment they stop enjoying football and they start to feel like the pressure is on, then I think there is only going to be one outcome."