BY Hannah Sellman

WRITER Dan Freedman visited Burnt Mill Academy to give an inspirational speech to the Year 8 students about his life.

With Freedman’s previous career involving work with Sky Sports, Radio 5 Live and the FA it was the perfect opportunity for the students to ask questions they had regarding football.

The students of Burnt Mill were intrigued to know why Freeman stopped working for the FA. He said “After seven years of working for the FA, I felt like I had achieved everything I could, I interviewed the England football team, I’d met the Queen, played football with Nelson Mandela and I wanted more freedom to use my creative power.”

The Jamie Johnson book series (written by Freedman) was the main topic of his speech. The books are aimed at children 11-years-old and above and are based on a young boy who dreams of becoming a footballer.

The inspiration for Freedman’s book series came when he was looking for a birthday present for a young boy who loved football. He said: “I walked into a book shop looking for a football novel and realised that nothing like that existed. I saw there was a gap in the market and I thought I’d put pen to paper and see what I could come up with.”

Freedman now spends most of his days focusing on writing new material for his books and visiting schools around the country, trying to encourage youngster to pick up a book and read.