By the time she was 15, Poppy had established quite a reputation among teachers across Liverpool. So disruptive was she, when she unleashed her full-on banshee alter-ego, that she could single-handedly bring a large school to a standstill. A whirling dervish of misdirected energy, she was excluded from most of the educational establishments in the city, sent away so that others could get on with learning in peace.

Then, in a last resort, rejected by every school across Merseyside, she was sent to the Everton Free School. There she was given the chance to enrol on a football coaching course. The moment she started laying out cones and preparing sessions on how to counter a tight press, it was, according to the school’s head teacher, Richard Cronin, as if a light had been switched on. Suddenly everything changed.

Now, three years on, Poppy is serving an apprenticeship in the Everton Community Coaching department. So good is she at encouraging others, when her apprenticeship finishes she is likely to be given a job helping youngsters develop their footballing skills.

“Every child has something that will engage them, enthuse them, get them out of bed in the morning,” says Cronin. “It’s our job to find that hook.” At any one time in Merseyside there are up to 600 youngsters permanently excluded from school. Disruptive, disturbed, disillusioned: there are many reasons why they drift out of the system.