Sam is a small, thin boy who gets bullied at school. He's mad about football, but no-one wants him on their team. He collects football stickers and can't believe his luck when he manages to get one of his hero, Mika Tailer - the best goalie in the world. Then Sam discovers that his sticker is magic. Suddenly, he can play brilliant football and is picked for the school team. But in his excitement, Sam handles the ball and his team loses. Sam has one last chance to play - in goal. Disaster strikes when the bullies tear up his sticker. But Sam finds he's a natural goalie and becomes a hero when his team win the match. John Goodwin has written numerous football books for children and his excellent knowledge of the game makes his descriptions of matches highly believable and exciting. This is an immediate and pacy story about football, featuring a likable and sympathetic hero, with a sprinkling of magic. It features sensitive storyline about bullying and how the young hero fights back through his own growing self-confidence.

 

This book is part of a book series called Football Mad .

There are 96 pages in this book. This book was published 2002 by Oxford University Press .

Clive Goodyer has illustrated a variety of children's books over the years. His fun, quirky and charming illustrations are highly distinctive. At 16, John Goodwin went out to work selling fruit and vegetables in a market. One of his jobs was to empty the pennies out of ladies loos. By his late 30's he'd somehow stumbled into taking the post of a university lecturer. However, it was only in his third career as a writer that he really found himself. He has now written over twenty plays for BBC radio and had a number of books published. These have included fiction for children, an educational drama series, and a number of non-fiction titles. Alan MacDonald was born in Watford and went to university in Bangor, North Wales, where he studied English and Drama. He started working life in a travelling theatre company visiting schools all over the country, writing much of their material. It was, as he says, a useful apprenticeship - if the audience didn't like the play, they talked through it or threw bits of paper at the actors. Hence, he very quickly learned what children liked. He has since written stories and dramas for the BBC (both television and radio), as well as many children's books. A keen football fan, Alan has supported Watford FC since childhood. Many of his stories have a football focus - which he rates as the next best thing to playing for England!Helena Pielichaty (pronounced Pierre-li-hatty) was born in Stockholm, Sweden but most of her childhood was spent in Yorkshire. As a result, she became a supporter of Huddersfield Town F. C. Her English teacher wrote of her in Year Nine that she produced 'lively and quite sound work but she must be careful not to let the liveliness go too far'. Following this advice, Helena never took her liveliness further south than East Grinstead, where she began her career as a teacher. She didn't begin writing until she was 32. Since then Helena has written numerous books for young readers.