Sam's future hopes for the young players of today

Allardyce has a dream in which every one of England's talented young soccer prospects could be coached to the highest level.

The Wanderers boss is disillusioned by the lack of decent facilities for the development of youngsters aged 11 and upwards.

He points to the quality of talent development in Iceland in particular and other areas of Europe in general which makes a mockery of what English soccer offers its young prospects.

"If I could I would like to build a facility in every town the size of the academies at Liverpool and Manchester United which are fantastic."

He says England is currently light years behind many of our European counterparts in providing the coaching infrastructure to bring the best out of its youngsters.

To bring about what he would like to see would need the Government's backing and co-operation.

He explained: "Iceland is another Bolton in terms of population. It has 200,000 people and yet there are 67 Icelandic footballers playing at first team level in England and Europe.

"In that country they take kids aged from 10 or 11 out of school for two or three afternoons a week to coach them.

"Danish football has only been professional for nine years but how many Danish players are there now? Plenty and that is because they develop players better than we do.

"I look at what we do with our 11-year-olds. We get them together one night a week for one and a half hours in the evening, stick them in one corner of an astroturf pitch in the freezing cold. How can you develop them like that?

"Our youngsters are generally unfit anyway because they have no basis to become an athlete or a fit young person. They spend all their time in front of a computer.

"We find we have to get kids fit first and then coach them which is different from my day. When I started playing I could run all day; I might not have been any good at football but I could run all day.

"If we want to do it right the Government would have to want to it."