Scottish football legend Tony Fitzpatrick has joined forces with inspiresport, the school sport travel specialist, for his new children's book 'The Dream – you can do this'.

inspiresport is giving away a free copy of the book to every primary school pupil who attends one of their school tours.

The book is part of Tony's 'Babakoochi and Friends' series which he created in memory of his son Tony Jnr, who died at the age of six from leukaemia in 1983.

In his new book, 'The Dream – you can do this', Babakoochi the bear embarks on a sporting adventure with his friends from freedom forest. Babakoochi was the nickname Tony coined for his son and the series of books promote the importance of care of the environment, good citizenship and health & wellbeing to children.

inspiresport recently organised a football development tour to St Mirren FC where Tony is Chief Executive, giving pupils the chance to play at the first team's training facilities and chat with the club's Manager, Alex Rae, and Assistant Manager, David Farrell.

Jed McCabe, Head of Youth Development at inspiresport, said: “We're delighted to team up with Tony to promote his new book to primary school children across the UK & Ireland and to invite budding footballers to try out the facilities at St Mirren.”

Award winning Author Tony Fitzpatrick, and current Chief Executive of St Mirren, said: “The Babakoochi books have come from my heart and it's been great working on this sporting adventure with inspiresport. I hope together we can help kids get lost in their imaginations and promote the benefits of team sports.

“As a football club, we're looking forward to working with inspiresport in the coming months to invite children to St Mirren where we will educate, inspire and entertain,” concluded Tony.

inspiresport provides development coaching tours for schools and clubs across the UK and worldwide, offering football, rugby, hockey, netball and cricket packages. The tours offer youngsters the chance to play and train with leading sports clubs around Europe, training at the first team facilities with professional club coaches.

Over the last 10 years inspiresport has built relationships with some of the world's largest clubs and taken over 70,000 aspiring players on professional sports training tours.

ENDS

For media enquiries or further information on inspiresport contact Sarah Johnson (sarah@wearelotus.co.uk) or Tim Thackray (tim@wearelotus.co.uk) at Lotus (0207 953 7470).

About inspiresport:

• Founded in 2004 inspiresport operate over 250 school tours a year.
• com is the only specialist sports travel company to be endorsed by leading governing bodies for schools sports travel including Welsh Schools Football Association, Welsh Colleges Football Association, English Schools Football Association, Scottish Youth Football Association and Scottish Schools Football Association.

• With offices in Cardiff, Manchester, Glasgow and Palma de Mallorca, Spain inspiresport have international partnerships to sell their tours in markets including China, United Arab Emirates and USA.