Five times Olympic gold medallist (and president of the British IRC) Sir Steve Redgrave faces possibly his biggest challenge yet - turning a squad of youngsters from Liverpool into top class rowers. The sporting legend has taken up the challenge of transforming eight lads into rowing stars to compete at the highest level of the sport in Britain - and take on the experts at the Henley Royal Regatta. The programme, provisionally titled Steve Redgrave's Liverpool 8 and to be broadcast on ITV in the autumn, will be an enormous challenge for Sir Steve and every bit as tough as racing for gold. Liverpool 8 is the postcode for Toxteth – the depressed area of Liverpool that still lives in the shadow of the riots that happened there in 1981. In nine days of rioting 140 buildings were destroyed, 1000 police were injured and a rioter was killed. Twenty-five years on many of the same problems that ignited the riots still blight Toxteth. Unemployment in L8 is three times higher than in the rest of Britain and the crime rate is more than double. And race is still a huge factor in L8's sense of social exclusion. Most of the young, mostly black male population have been kicked out of school, on to the dole and straight into trouble. More than half the population in the area are black or mixed race. Young black guys dominate the dole queues and the lists of those excluded from the area's struggling schools. The Henley Regatta in July next year coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the riots, which is why Sir Steve has chosen Toxteth as the place to test his belief that sport and training can help repair fractured communities and give young people the personal strength they need to build better livesTo get the best squad, Sir Steve is putting together a team of expert coaches, trainers and nutritionists. Among them are his wife, Dr Lady Ann Redgrave, the former medical advisor to the British Olympic rowing team, who will support the squad through injuries and accidents. In the build up to the 2012 London Olympics, the time couldn't be more right for Sir Steve's mission. Sir Steve said of the project: I'm extremely excited about Liverpool 8. Taking a bunch of young guys who've never rowed before and giving them the tools and the motivation to try out for the Henley Regatta is a massive challenge, but I'm going to give it everything. There are people in the world of rowing telling me that taking a team with no skills and no experience to the level required to compete at Henley isn't possible. Certainly, I would have liked more time, but that just makes me more determined.For me it's not just about whether I can help these guys understand what it takes to become athletes. It's about what taking part in sport can do for you as a person. It can teach you that if you set yourself a goal and have the determination to push yourself to the limit, then you can achieve almost anything.