When FourFourTwo launched 31 years ago, the football landscape was different. Fabrizio Romano was still in nappies, the Premier League was in its infancy and football transfers could be made all year round.
Some things haven’t changed though, and that includes the giddy feeling of discovering an up-and-coming player. FFT’s long-running 'The Boy’s A Bit Special' series has, over three decades, been a love letter to amateur and wannabe scouts among football fandom.
Today’s armchair aficionado has more information at their fingertips than even the most seasoned chief scouts in the mid-1990s – between 1994 and 2010, the majority of our picks were based in Britain, although there were spin-offs including names from further afield.
History of FourFourTwo's 'The Boy's A Bit Special' magazine feature
The series was revived in 2016, when it became known as Scouting Report and then Talentspotter, showcasing the best and brightest players from across the globe. Later on, between 2021 and 2023, we trained our magnifying glass specifically on the EFL and Scotland, as part of the magazine’s brand new Around The Grounds section.
In total, we’ve profiled more than 450 young players – some of whom went on to great success, others less so. Nine of them have even served a stint behind bars. No, we won’t be commissioning a special The Boy’s In A Bit Of Legal Bother feature any time soon.
Now, we’ve given the legendary series a facelift while simultaneously returning to our roots. The Boy’s A Bit Special is back. But first we’ll take a trip down memory lane to look at all the prodigious picks and forgettable flops from over 30 years of FFT’s in-depth talent scouting, as we rate the success of our choices.
1990s
1994
The first ever issue of FourFourTwo hit the shelves in September 1994 – in the four magazines published before the turn of the year, we featured no fewer than 28 players, with the majority of our picks aging surprisingly well.
Future England internationals Trevor Sinclair, Steve Guppy, David Unsworth and Kevin Davies all featured, as did Scotland’s Neil McCann, plus some lad called Ronaldo at PSV. We also picked Abedi Pele, although we cheated a bit there – he was 30 at the time…
Norwich hall-of-famer Darren Eadie made the cut too, as did defender Dean Richards, who would sadly pass away in 2011 after a successful top-flight career with Southampton and Spurs.
There was also a touch of the weird and wonderful: former Zimbabwean international and father-of-13 Peter Ndlovu was included in issue number one alongside young Dutchman Bryan Roy, then of Nottingham Forest.
Roy has followed an interesting path since retiring from the game, as most individuals with a ‘Controversies’ section on Wikipedia tend to have done. During the Covid pandemic, he appeared on a YouTube show that promoted conspiracy theories. “My kids ask me, ‘What are you on about?’” Roy has since admitted.
He was later handed a suspended jail sentence for a tweet threatening to shoot the country’s prime minister Mark Rutte, before being handed an actual prison sentence for refusing to do the community service. Blimey, Bryan.
1995
The second calendar year began with our first spin-off called The Boy’s STILL A Bit Special, which featured Peter Reid, John Aldridge and Jimmy Case, all of whom had passed their 36 birthdays and were enjoying Indian summers at the tail end of their careers.
That was followed later by Kevin’s A Bit Special – the most ’90s thing you could imagine, in which we managed to find eight players called Kevin. Among them we selected Kevin Gallacher, Kevin Horlock and the 6ft 7in Stockport striker Kevin Francis, who later left Britain for Canada to become a truck driver, then a police officer. Disappointingly there was no place for Kevin De Bruyne in our list – he was only three years old, after all.
Another spin-off came in the shape of The Boy’s A Bit Of A Disappointment, remarkably featuring Romario after a difficult second season with Barcelona – he’d lifted the World Cup with Brazil only 12 months earlier and won FIFA’s World Player of the Year award in 1994.
Next up was The Boy’s A Bit Foreign, including ‘Georgiou’ Kinkladze, as well as The Boy’s Made A Bit Of A Comeback, which spotlighted Swedish midfielder Anders Limpar, Tony Cottee and Mark Ward. Several years later, Ward was linked to a cocaine bust on Merseyside and served four years in prison.
1996
After extolling the virtues of David Beckham and Paul Scholes at the start of the year, the youngsters took a back seat before Euro 96, as FFT profiled 20 players to watch at the tournament under the title of The Boy’s A Bit World Class. Several household names would feature, alongside Switzerland’s Kubilay Turkyilmaz, who went on to net against England in the tournament’s opening game and more recently ran a cafe on the Swiss-Italian border.
Returning to young players after the Euros, FFT enjoyed plenty of hits, picking Michael Owen, Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell for future glory. A new generation of English talent was rising.
1997
FFT rated Rio Ferdinand so highly that we featured him again in 1997 – we weren’t wrong, were we?
Rory Delap and Craig Bellamy were also selected – sadly no mention of long throws in the former’s profile – but it was the spin-offs that provided the best entertainment. Australian special The Boy’s A Bit Fair Dinkum could only offer up Paul Okon and Steve Corica, while The Boy’s A Bit Booked, a disciplinary edition, featured Don Hutchison and Billy McKinlay.
1998
Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s half brother and future Marbella FC striker Carl Cort was tipped for great things by FourFourTwo in the lead-up to France 98.
The World Cup dominated coverage during our summer issues. Before the tournament began, we tipped Fernando Morientes, Hidetoshi Nakata and Benni McCarthy. After it, we profiled a young Jay-Jay Okocha, Ricardo Gardner and a 20-year-old upstart called Thierry Henry who’d lifted the trophy.
We also profiled Gus Hurdle, who was released by Fulham as a teenager, began driving a London bus, pretty quickly got sick of that, then turned up at Brentford and asked for a trial. The Bees signed him on a month-to-month contract, and four years later he was selected among FFT’s feature on the best young players, going to show that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Admittedly though, his career didn’t exactly kick on from there.
Joe Cole also featured later that year, unearthed relatively early on in his West Ham career, but points must be docked for FFT’s Boy’s A Bit Fictional spin-off. Ronaldinho was just breaking through for crying out loud, who cares about Hot-Shot Hamish and Billy The Fish?
1999
Our January issue featured quite the juxtaposition. Jimmy Corbett played only a handful of times for Gillingham, Darlington and Southend, while Vikash Dhorasoo would become a Champions League and World Cup runner-up with Milan and France.
Sadly injuries did for Corbett’s chances of anything greater. The final year before the millennium had plenty of winners, including John Terry, Rob Green, Ledley King, Clinton Morrison, Richard Dunne and Enzo Maresca, whose professional career bizarrely began at West Brom. There was a footballer-turned-boxer in the shape of Curtis Woodhouse and the relative of a Simple Minds guitarist too – Mark Burchill, since you asked.
2000s
2000
A backflipper, a convicted match-fixer and three Champions League winners – FFT was on one here. Future Newcastle and Portsmouth acrobat Lomana LuaLua was included while still at Colchester, and we fancied Huddersfield’s Delroy Facey to make headlines – we didn’t necessarily expect them to be about a jail sentence for bribing players to fix the outcome of a non-league game.
The Boy’s A Bit Left-Footed included youngsters Wayne Bridge, Jon Harley and Matt Taylor. Ashley Cole, eventually one of England’s best left-footers of all time, didn’t make that issue but got a nod two months later after impressing on loan at Crystal Palace. He went on to do all right, as did Scott Parker, Michael Carrick, David Dunn and Tim Cahill.
Oh, and the other Champions League winner, apart from Cole and Carrick? The one and only Djimi Traore.
2001
It was a great year for young strikers, as FFT picked out Bobby Zamora, Jermain Defoe, Shola Ameobi, Darius Vassell and David Healy, but we couldn’t shake the habit of selecting a player who’d find themselves in hot water with the Old Bill. Steve Brooker didn’t have a top-level career, but scored plenty for Port Vale and Bristol City. He also got sentenced to four weeks behind bars in 2006 for his part in a nightclub brawl.
An 18-year-old Joleon Lescott made our list, too, after establishing himself with Wolves in the second tier.
2002
You’ve heard of Barclaysmen, but FFT was well ahead of the curve predicting future Football Leaguesmen – all we have to do now is figure out how to crowbar in the sponsor. Endsleighmen? Coca-Colamen? We’re not convinced either of those are going to catch on. The Boy’s A Bit Special cohort of 2002 included Kevin Nolan (above), Jason Koumas, Shaun Maloney, Jobi McAnuff, Michael Chopra, Jay Bothroyd and Neil Mellor. Now at only two picks per issue, down from eight in 1994 and four in the years preceding 2002, there was much less room for error. No stars, but few duds and still very Anglo-centric.
2003
It was a slow start to the year, with our selections reading like the members of a mid-2000s indie band: Ian Murray, Lee Wilkie, Jason Brown and – obviously the maverick bass guitarist who was born into privilege – Javier Portillo, anyone? Fortunately, Steve Sidwell, Gary O’Neil, David Bentley, Wayne Routledge and Peter Whittingham saved the day for FFT, all of them going on to play at the highest level for extended periods.
There was also Spurs flop Jonathan Blondel, plus yet another convicted match-fixer in Dickson Etuhu.
2004
FFT’s first Girl’s A Bit Special success story came thanks to Julie Fleeting (middle), who went on to win 17 major titles for Arsenal and score a ridiculous 116 goals for Scotland – a British record by a mile, with Ellen White England’s best at 52. It was a good year for Scots, as Kris Commons, David ‘Whigfield’ Marshall, Chris Burke and Paul Gallagher would all feature. Leighton Baines takes the prize as this year’s biggest Boy’s A Bit Special star though, narrowly pipping Michael Dawson to the top spot.
Curiously, Euro 2004 wonderkid Wayne Rooney never appeared in the Boy’s A Bit Special section – although he pretty much went straight from foetus to cover star, to be fair.
2005
John Ruddy, Nedum Onuoha, James Milner, Aiden McGeady and Giuseppe Rossi would have been a decent enough five-a-side team, even if Rossi never quite reached the heights he promised. Kris Boyd, Curtis Davies, Liam Rosenior and David Nugent also featured in 2005.
After watching his performances in the Football League, we had no doubts the latter would go on to possess one of the greatest strike rates in the history of the English national team. OK, it was one appearance and one goal. Against Andorra. And the goal in question was stolen from Jermain Defoe by tapping in an already on-target effort from a yard. But we knew the Preston striker would go down in history. Moving swiftly on…
2006
FFT had Theo Walcott in our crosshairs months before Sven-Goran Eriksson selected the teenager for his World Cup squad – the nippy talent was still playing for Southampton when we picked him out. Walcott’s inclusion aged 16 made him the youngest player to be included in Boy’s A Bit Special, until the 2025 relaunch.
Walcott is the standout name from 2006, but we also gave Lassana Diarra, Stephen Ireland, Micah Richards and Ashley Young a platform that year.
2007
We were doing so well… almost four years without picking a single felonious individual. Anthony Stokes, come on down. The Irish striker joined Sunderland from Arsenal in 2007, after a loan spell with Falkirk when he set the Scottish Premier League alight – not literally, arson isn’t one of the crimes Stokes was later accused of.
Headbutting an Elvis impersonator was, along with stalking, plus drug and driving offences. A hell of a rap sheet for a professional footballer. Gabby Agbonlahor, Joe Ledley, Scott Sinclair, Mark Noble, Michael Mancienne, Victor Anichebe and Daniel Sturridge were among the other players to make it into Boy’s A Bit Special that year. Altar boys in comparison to Stokes.
2008
Fabrice Muamba, James Tomkins, Danny Simpson, Jack Rodwell, Fraizer Campbell and Adam Johnson – yes, that one – were among the nominees during this calendar year. It’s not a great cohort, and tarnished for obvious reasons, but it was a time when English football was plumbing the depths for talent, having failed to qualify for the Euros.
2009
Boy’s A Bit Special was cut down to just one player per month by 2009 – look, the financial crisis affected everybody differently, and these wonderkids aren’t a recession-proof commodity.
Even with that, the list was still a little thin on the ground – Fabian Delph and Gary Hooper were both among the more notable names, though Crystal Palace’s Victor Moses would become a Premier League champion with Chelsea.
2010s
2010
After 16 years, Boy’s A Bit Special ground to a halt in September 2010 – Ciaran Clark, Charlie Austin, Tom Cairney and Fraser Forster were all in the spotlight that year, but the last player chosen was Jay Emmanuel-Thomas. Then at Arsenal, the teenager’s name was commonly abbreviated to JET – and this summer he lived up to that moniker when he was convicted for masterminding the import of cannabis into the UK via plane.
Perhaps even back then we somehow sensed that the feature was a curse.
FFT needed a reset before we could inadvertently jinx any more young prospects to time behind bars.
2016
After a six-year hiatus, FFT’s scouting talents returned refreshed and ready to go, while carefully trying to suss out which up-and-coming players were least likely to become hardened criminals. Our search expanded to the whole planet, which meant the hit rate was decidedly improved. First pick Samuel Umtiti was crowned a world champion with France within two years, while a 17-year-old goalkeeper called Gianluigi Donnarumma (above) and Anderlecht’s Youri Tielemans also rose to stardom.
2017
Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior, Marco Asensio and Jadon Sancho reads like the 2025 Ballon d’Or final four in a different timeline where all managed to fulfil their massive potential.
Vinicius was still at Flamengo when we picked him out, although selecting Everton midfield man Tom Davies doesn’t look quite so clever in hindsight.
Maybe we chose him for his fashion sense? Probably not, to be honest.
2018
Talentspotter took a break during the World Cup following an impressive run through the first half of 2018. Fresh off the back of his World Cup and European Under-17 glory with England, Phil Foden was profiled, as was Franck Kessie, plus frontman Lautaro Martinez, while still at Argentine side Racing Club.
Timothy Weah, Frenkie de Jong and Alphonso Davies (above) had a moment in the sun during the second part of the year – the latter while still in MLS with Vancouver Whitecaps. The year was full of hits, and not only because Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa released One Kiss.
2019
It was a year of peaks and troughs this time around – Birmingham’s Jude Bellingham one minute, Derby’s Duane Holmes the next. It would be fair to say that Jack Clarke, Carles Alena and Grady Diangana have also been less successful on the European stage than other picks that included Luka Jovic, Lucas Paqueta, Morgan Gibbs-White and Joao Felix.
2020s
2020
The year of the pandemic is the only one in Boy’s A Bit Special history where FFT had a 100 per cent hit rate – partly because we featured just two players before football shut down and all your Facebook pals became epidemiologists. We’ll take that record, nonetheless – Borussia Monchengladbach’s Marcus Thuram followed a rangy forward called Erling Haaland, shortly before he left Red Bull Salzburg. Anybody know what happened to him in the end?
2021
After 12 months of unprecedented chaos and one state-mandated walk per day, Boy’s A Bit Special returned with a bang, focusing purely on players from the EFL and Scotland.
The first two that we picked haven’t done too badly for themselves: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, then on loan at Luton, and Michael Olise, who plied his trade for Reading at the time.
It went downhill from there though, as Liel Abada, Mallik Wilks, Carlos Mendes Gomes and Luke Jephcott can all attest – the quartet are now respectively turning out for teams in MLS, the Turkish second tier, League One and the National League.
2022
We got our act together the following year, highlighting Fabio Carvalho, Jan Paul van Hecke, Matt O’Riley, Celtic’s talisman Jota and free-kick specialist Scott Twine for a success rate of almost 50 per cent with our selections.
Others may argue Troy Parrott and Hannibal Mejbri deserve to be included among the hits rather than the misses – selected by us during a loan at Preston, Irishman Parrott has since impressed at AZ Alkmaar – but they belonged to Spurs and Manchester United when we featured them and didn’t make the grade there. It’s all relative, people.
2023
After another intense talent-spotting burst, Boy’s A Bit Special went off on another long holiday at the end of the 2022-23 season, joined the after-dinner speaking circuit, tried and failed to get on Strictly Come Dancing, then briefly considered taking up some lucrative consultancy work for Red Bull.
Not before we’d highlighted some more top EFL prodigies, however. Since then, Taylor Harwood-Bellis has netted for England, Finn Azaz’s transfer fees have reached a combined £15m, while James Trafford has gone from Manchester City to, well, Manchester City.
He’s now also the most expensive goalkeeper in British history, to be fair, after a spell at Burnley in between – and even better, he’s never had any kind of flare-up with an Elvis impersonator.
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