Most dreamers wake to stare bleakly at reality some day.

Most footballers play for fun not millions. They're too young to know it though. All the excitement expressed in months and years whittled away with hope; all the letters and offers and chains of figures studied across kitchen tables; all the girlfriends missed and friends forgotten have made sure they don't know it. Football has been their young lives. Conor Clifford is 14. Gavin Gunning is just a year older. Already they are thought to be the next big things. Money. Pressure.

Chances.

Gunning knows all too well about chance, his path to the present has grown from it.

In his earlier moments his mother helped with a local team to keep young guys occupied. They weren't great, even if her son was. They lost 6-3 to St Joseph's one weekend but Gunning had buried a hat-trick and before he trudged from the pitch, another defeat fresh in his mind, he was accepting an offer from his opponents. At Joseph's he was good, but this was a step higher. He slotted home two penalties one day against Templeogue, the right people were on the sidelines.

Soon, he'll be at Blackburn.

Clifford kept to the straight and narrow. He was invited to play for Charlton at 10, was chased and harried by the Premiership's made men at 11 with offers of fame and wealth, and by 13 had become the youngest ever Irish soccer international, pulling on a green jersey with the under16s. Soon, his wages will drip from Roman Abramovich's bank vaults.

They're told by many the world awaits but John Stokes has told them otherwise. As an advisor from the Stellar Group, he's told them not to rush. He's told them to get a Junior Cert. He's told them things can and will go wrong.

Soon, he'll be accepting phone calls from two Irish teens, inquisitive and ignorant to what guys their age do in the real world. He's heard all those wondering words before. His son Anthony asked the same during his lessmature days with Arsenal.

"I'd gone back to school as a mature student and then came over to England with Anthony. He has and does get very well looked after at Arsenal but there are some kids who don't get that sort of treatment. I became aware in my travels around the country with Anthony, of other Irish kids over there who weren't as fortunate and I said I'd get involved. I just thought it would be great if I could help them in any way whatsoever. There are so many problem areas. I'm not slagging off any other agents, but in the past they take on young kids and if they don't make it they get dropped immediately. That's where we have to make sure that kids who don't make it have a life to fall in to. And there are a lot of cases where they don't, unfortunately.

"There are kids that are on very poor contracts too.

Young guys signing contracts at 14 when kids that age should be looking after their education and enjoying their football. But clubs are sitting on top of kids on a contractual basis at 13 or 14. We say don't get involved. Wait. Kids are anxious and think things must be done now and it can be hard to turn away. Clubs can be very persuasive and wrong decisions can be made.

They can bring you to a fancy hotel and make an impression but people need to see that things aren't always like this. And they need to understand that. It's not the guys who will make it that are the problem."

Gavin Gunning and Conor Clifford were brought to that fancy hotel. At Chelsea they were shown the maze of velvet ropes. Clifford decided it was for him. Gunning took a different path. For a kid living in Leopardstown he looked away. Others came and watched and were tempted as well. By the time he discussed it at home, Blackburn was his preferred choice.

Rovers was just too attractive according to his father, Joey.

"It's not so long away now, he'll be heading over to Rovers in July. They want to improve him physically. He's 6'2" at centre half, but they want him to get to know the place. He won't be over there full-time until he's 16. Arsenal, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Man City all wanted him. There were others but once the big clubs come in it's very difficult for the smaller ones. He was over in Chelsea on quite a few occasions but nothing really became of that. He really didn't like it there, whether it was the lay out or the set-up of the place, he just didn't find it very comfortable. And I guess he chose Blackburn because they want him there on the reserve team by the time he was 16. That was a very attractive proposition.

They obviously have very high hopes.

"But still, the education side of things does worry me and my wife, there's no point in saying otherwise. Even at the minute he has exams coming up, and it's been a distraction. You can't blame him for that. It would always be a distraction and football is everything to him. And there's the situation if he doesn't make it. He could be like so many other guys that haven't made it. What do you do? You come back and work as a painter or a decorator?

Or you play in the Eircom League? It can all disappear very quickly. But he's very laid back about the entire situation and that can make people get very jealous. He was bullied a little bit about it in school and it was tough.

But I think other kids just look at what he's achieving and get very jealous. That can happen. But look, football's been very good to him."

It's treated the Cliffords well too. Conor's father, Paul, was there the day his son's future tilted towards Chelsea.

Knowing the club, the offer was always going to be too god for them to refuse.

Conor's status as a midfielder was too much for Chelsea to turn their chequebooks away from.

"You look back and get very excited. All along I never thought that he [Conor] would make it big, daddies never think of that. I never played at any level myself to be quite honest but he's such an individual himself and he always stood out wherever he was playing. He would have played for these representative sides like the DDSL [Dublin and District Schoolboys League] and even at that level he stood out and looked above them."

It was noticeable to all.

Before long, 23 English clubs had thrown money at a child.

He was 11 when the first offer arrived. Having gone to Holland with Liam Brady and Arsenal, having played in Switzerland and France, he was forced to choose a path to follow. In three years he will reap the exuberant rewards.

An offer of £100,000 may seem a lot for a 17 year old, but speculation has thrown such figures around in modesty.

"He's signed a very, very good contract at Chelsea now.

Chelsea really went out big time to get Conor. Frank Arnensen really liked him.

When Conor went over he went for a week and it was really down to Frank to make his mind up on him and he looked and liked and came in with an offer. So what happened was, Chelsea ended up coming to my house, they came over with their offers and they were prepared to go a long way to get him. I didn't want Conor taken out of school, so he's going to stay until he's 16, get his schooling and go over then. So they are going to train a coach over here, they are going to bring him over to Chelsea and coach him the Chelsea way and he'll get one-on-one tuition when he comes back over with Crumlin.

"And he won't get a penny until he is 17 and then, yes, he will be looked after. The one thing Chelsea asked us to do was never tell the financial details of the contract. It's his business and it's my business. What I would say is that he'll be on a very, very good wage when he reaches 17. Up until then he's really serving his apprenticeship. When he goes over at 16 he'll be on a one-year scholarship. He'll be on £100 a week and then when he turns 17 he'll be on 10 or 20 times that."

He'll have to compromise between tournaments with Chelsea in Marbella and Holland, and Irish international fixtures, but it's an envious position to be in. And if he doesn't make it, well he'll make it somewhere.

"Look at the experience he will get out of it all. To me, it's like being an apprentice going with a mechanic, you are shown the right and wrong things to do and you give it a go. And if Conor is getting told these things by Chelsea, they are the best in the world.

So he may fall out of a tree but if he falls from the top, he's likely to hit a branch on the way down.

"They think he can be a footballer. He is only that age and things can go wrong. I talk to him all the time. I do a lot of psychology with him.

But to me it's the first step on the ladder and then there's reserves and Irish under-21s and, hopefully, he'll get on the Chelsea first side. And the way I look at it, someone has to get there, so why not him.

Someone has to get in the starting 11 at these clubs."

Some one. Some two. A few have to fulfil the dreams of the many.