Shaun Goater will launch his highly-anticipated autobiography in Bermuda this weekend with a clear message to all young footballers wishing to follows in his footsteps ? shoot for the stars and you might just get there.

The book, predictably called ?Feed the Goat?, was released in the UK at the beginning of this month, when the Manchester City legend ventured on an emotional tour around four of his former clubs ? Rotherham, Bristol City, City and Southend ? to promote a first literary effort which was co-written by journalist David Clayton and had been two years in the making.

And while readers in the UK were obviously more concerned with details of life at the pinnacle of English professional football, it is the chapters relating to his early life growing up on Court Street of which he is most proud and which he knows Bermudians will truly appreciate.

?The Bermuda angle is definitely something I tried to push in the book because of where I came from and the obstacles I had to overcome to fulfil my ambitions. Those are things which are very important to me,? said Goater, who scored 241 goals in 569 professional appearances.

?I grew up on Court Street and there were plenty of reasons why I could have got distracted or made excuses for why I wasn?t going to be able to make the most of the talent I?d been given.

?But I got to where I wanted to go in spite of the disadvantages I faced and my hope is that parents will buy my book and get their kids to read it and learn to appreciate that no matter how humble your background, you can still get out there and achieve great things if you want it badly enough.

?I look back at my childhood and what has happened since and it makes me smile sometimes. I lived on Marsh Folly Road and as any curious kid would do I used to climb over the fence into the land surrounding Government House to snoop around ? and I got chased off there a few times by security guards. But about a year ago I was invited to have dinner with Sir John Vereker at Government House and I walked through the front door as a man who had done something with his life. That makes me more proud than anything else.?

The idea of writing an autobiography first occurred to Goater in early 2004 when he was approached by a fanatical City fan who asked him when he planned to start putting pen to paper.

And he found an ideal man to help him write the book in Clayton, a journalist he trusted after many years dealing with each other during his time with City.

Goater met with several publishers interested in taking on the project ? though he admitted to being unsettled by some who simply wanted him to dish the dirt.

?We had dealings with a couple of publishers, who, I got the impression, were only interested in controversy and sensationalism and that?s not really my style or what I wanted for the book.

?I didn?t want to use it as an opportunity to settle old scores or embarrass a lot of people by publishing information they might not want the public to know about. Some of things that happened in the dressing room over the course of my career will always remain there.

?Saying that though, my one disappointment is that there were a few things that I wanted to get in there about my time at City which the lawyers who looked over the book said might be a problem, so it didn?t go in.

?So in some respects I wish I could have been more open. I wanted to give the people who read my book a chance to see behind the media image of certain individuals, but unfortunately it wasn?t possible.

?Overall though I?m very happy with the end result and I hope that those who buy it will enjoy the read.?

Goater will be at the Bermuda Bookstore on Queen Street from 2-4 p.m. this Saturday to sign copies of the book and at their branch in Dockyard on Sunday at the same time.