SEVENTEEN-year-old Warren Burrell is at the crossroads faced by thousands of young men intent on a career in football.

In just a few weeks time, the second year apprentice with Division Two team Mansfield Town will discover if the club is to give him a contract. If they don't, then he isn't really certain what the future holds.

"I'd probably try and get on at another club, but that's not always easy when you're with a lower division club like Mansfield," he says. "It may be that I'd stay in football in some other way, possibly through coaching, but my real goal is still to secure a job as a footballer."

Warren's dilemma is one he shared with 500 other young apprentices with clubs in the Football League - the Championship, Division One and Division Two - who attended a conference, the first of its kind, at the City of Manchester Stadium.

Realising its moral duty to provide a more certain future for the kids who don't quite make it, League Football Education (LFE) hosted its inaugural careers convention.

Representatives of the YMCA, fire service, the Army, Fitness First and various universities an audience, who, at the outset seemed a bit nonplussed, but who left feeling they had learned something useful.

Statistics

Cruel as it may be, the statistics covering Football League clubs alone suggest it was worth listening intently. League clubs often sign up youngsters to their youth academies when they are only six or seven and not all of them make it on to the formal apprentice system after they leave full-time education.

Of those wide-eyed wannabes still with the football academies by the age of 18, only 40 per cent are ever offered a professional contract. Only 10 per cent of them will still be playing football professionally by the age of 21.

And for lads with a head full of football and little else, having to find a new career must be a pretty cataclysmic event. LFE event organiser Rob Hezel says the main aim of the event was to emphasise the importance of education and employment for athletes who have to exit their sport through injury, not making the grade or retirement.

He recognises the dilemma of parents with a sports mad child and the potential for that enthusiasm to end in disappointment, but says the football industry is taking its responsibilities to young people seriously.

"I have a son of my own and I'm sure that if a club offered to put him on their books, there's no way in the world I could stop him from turning up and playing twice a week," he says

"But you have to be open and honest too. Many of the young people who train for a professional career in football simply won't make it . . . and yet there's no way of knowing that until they reach a certain age.

"Players like Wayne Rooney are special in that his potential was spotted when he was tiny. But for many lads, there's no way for the coaching staff to know if they will have the right physical characteristics."

Message

Emphasising the message that there is life after sport was England netball player Tracey Neville, (sister of soccer stars Gary and Phil) who now works full-time at Leeds Metropolitan University's nutrition department.

Meanwhile, five times world swimming champion James Hickman now runs his own Manchester-based media business, Made In Manchester, and is currently using his experience to help publicise the FINA World Swimming Championships, which take place at the M.E.N. Arena.

And gold medal sprinter Darren Campbell started his sporting career as a footballer, playing for Newport and Weymouth, but realised his talents lay in athletics.

"I have always been realistic about what I can achieve in life and having joined the same academy as Ryan Giggs and seen what he could do with a football and what I could do with a football, I realised that I was only ever destined to play in the lower divisions." Campbell was fortunate, securing numerous medals as an athlete and now running his own sports nutrition business.

But he adds: "The impact of not making it can be crushing."

Only time will tell whether the 500 at the conference in Manchester go on to fulfilling sporting careers, or whether their dreams will be dashed by injury and disappointment.

For more information on David May fronting Yahoo Passions click here.

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