"One for example stopped the trial after 45 minutes because - and this is a quote - I was "bringing down the level of his players".

That might have been a setback but it didn't stop TV producer Ralf Haley trying to see if a distant dream could become a reality.

The Englishman contacted over 1,000 clubs around the world to see if he could persuade even one club to give him a football trial, with a view to a professional contract. In the end seven said yes.

His adventure is detailed in his book The Beautiful Dream: One man's ridiculous quest to become a professional footballer and he joined us on this week's Team 33 to tell how far he got in his quest to go from non-footballer to footballer.

You can listen to the full interview with Ralf on this week's Team 33 podcast below or stream on iTunes:

The book which is in the process of being turned into a feature documentary (check out the trailers below) explains how he managed to convinced clubs in far flung places like Andorra, the Baltic nations and Malta to give him a trial, and how he fared - including how he nearly died from heat exhaustion in his Malta trial.

Plus for anyone who has had latent daydreams of giving professional football a shot, he explains how big a gap it is to go from ordinary non-athlete to pro footballer in minor football nations.