Steven Schumacher – on captaining England, playing at Everton but never getting a Premier League chance

Must be tough moving around so much especially with a young family. That said, there's many that would trade places for a career in professional football.

Does show the other side of the modern game though, where Niasse and similar like him can become very wealthy overnight and hardly kick a football and lads like Schumacher have to graft for a living.

Wish him well, sounds like a good blue and was obviously a decent player.

(It's a name you don't forget too, I remember a lad called Schumacher when I was in St Margaret Mary's juniors in the 1960s, plus I seem to recall a Liverpool boxer with that name.)

Maybe he just found his level, who knows? But the way footballers develop is strange. There are so many elements in the equation. Steven Schumacher clearly had it mentally, captaining all the way through the ranks, others just don't mature. Some develop early and stall. Some develop that bit later, such as Bainsey who, as mentioned, couldn't make Kirkby Boys, left Everton, dropped down and progressed from there.

Maybe he just didn't have that extra. But then did someone like... Lee Carsley? Robbie Savage? The margins must be fine I guess.

Fair play, Stevens had a good career and seems to have the right kind of attitude and awareness of self and others to make a success of managing or coaching.

When I was in my late teens I often watched the great Huyton Boys team, the only non city team to win the National Schoolboy Trophy. The star of that team and a really classy player was a lad called Frank Pimblett who was the captain. He went on to join Aston Villa but failed to progress and I believe he went to play in Australia.

Another midfielder in that team, but less glamorous or inventive, was a lad by the name of Peter Reid. Football can be fickle!!

But strangely enough, two schools I went too mentioned in the first five posts.

I grew up in Kirkby in the sixties and can vouch for the production line of really good footballers over a number of decades. In my day, a kid called Ray Pritchard was an early version of Kevin Ratcliffe and Kevin Beattie. Real talent. Played for Everton , Kirkby Boys, Lancashire and (I think) England Schoolboys. Think he then went to Tranmere then lost touch with his career.

I think it was Barking boys they (we!) beat in the final.

Memory fading but have a feeling it might have been over two legs.

Certainly for the home leg, I remember getting on a double decker on Pilch Lane, hired by St Margaret Mary's to take us to Anfield (or..um..maybe it was Goodison).

I remember just about everyone I knew going and there being buses and coaches from every school in Huyton there.

Thinking about it now, it seems odd how big a deal it seemed - going to watch a team of 14 year olds from your district - but I suppose (comes over all J.R Hartley) it was a simpler time and there was just less available by the way of entertainment.

As I recall it was at Goodison.

Tony – re Goodison, no doubt you're right, as I say memory gets worse by the hour.