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Ian Snodin

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Snods is an Everton legend who was part of the glorious 1980's sides.

He is now a columnist and broadcaster, covering Everton for various media organisations.

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We've really started to push on today with our quest to find some footballing talent here in China.

Myself, Ray Hall and Steve Darby have been practicing the routines that we'll put the kids through and we did a few dummy runs on the pitch this morning.

The playing surface, which is astroturf, was saturated after some really heavy rain overnight and first thing this morning and it made controlling the football quite difficult at times - that's my excuse for the odd mis-placed pass.

At least I didn't volley one onto a nearby roof like Ray Hall.

The pitch we're using is right by the famous Bird's Nest Stadium which was used in the Olympics in 2008.

My early impressions of Beijing is that it's a very clean, very lively city - although when I went for a stroll through a market-place by our hotel, I was taken aback by some of the things being sold as snacks.

Some of the things were still alive.

But I love seeing and experiencing new places and the people over here have been really friendly.

I'm now looking forward to working with the kids over the weekend. The routines that Ray and Steve have worked out are nice and simple but will still test the young players' ability to play football, which is what it's all about.

By the way, if you're wondering who Steve Darby is, he's a coach with incredible experience in this part of the world. He's worked at international level with Reidy and Bryan Robson in Thailand and he's coached extensively throughout Asia. He's from Anfield by the way.

So, in summary, it's very much a case of so far, so good and I'll keep you posted.