Book 8 in the acclaimed Rugby Spirit series. Eoin Madden and his friends are back at school and it looks like it will be a fun year with new subjects and activities to try. After all his years on the Junior Cup team, Eoin is looking forward to a break from rugby this year; when there's a chance to play soccer instead, he jumps at it! But it's hard to set up a football team at a rugby-mad school like Castlerock - can the boys do it? And who is the ghostly footballer with links to Dalymount Park that Eoin and his friends keep meeting? Eoin usually sees ghosts when trouble is brewing, so is something wrong at the football grounds? From the Busby Babes of the 1950s to the Castlerock Red Rockets, football links the generations.

This fact-filled book takes popular notions and ideas about football and examines where the myth came from, how or why it has become well known, and finally whether it really is true or false! It looks at statements like: 'World War One was stopped for a game of football' or 'A player was murdered for scoring an own goal'. Each statement is evaluated and then awarded a Truth or Busted stamp at the end of each entry. The title also has fascinating features such as highest transfer fees around the world or cool David Beckham facts, as well as a mini quiz on football teams and their grounds!

Do you think you know everything there is to know about football?

Have you heard of ...

* The psychic octopus who could predict the winner?

* The Lancashire Lasses who became football's best kept secret?

* The dog detective who saved the World Cup trophy?

* The superstar footballer who never actually played football?

Discover the most incredible, sometimes ridiculous, and always completely unbelievable football stories you never knew. From bestselling author Matt Oldfield, this is Unbelievable Football - true tales from the world's favourite game where there's everything to play for and anything can happen.

The perfect gift for the football-mad kid in your life.

GOOOAAAAAL! Get ready for a front-row seat at the world's most-watched sporting event--the World Cup.

Every four years, thirty-two of the best men's soccer teams from across the globe compete for the title of FIFA World Cup winner. Over one billion people tuned in worldwide to watch the final game of the 2014 competition, making the World Cup the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Summer Olympics! This book takes a look back at what has changed since the first tournament in 1930 and what lies ahead for the most popular sport in the world.

MELCHESTER MELTDOWN! Relive the best Roy of the Rovers stories from the 1990s in this exciting anthology of reprinted classic strips, celebrating over 65 years of the iconic football comic. The dawn of this new decade was one that Melchester Rovers would want to forget. The 80/81 season was far from their finest hour with the threat of relegation snapping at their heels all throughout the season and exits from the F.A. Cup and the European Cup leaving the trophy cabinet bare. For star striker Roy Race it couldn't be worse. His obsession with the team had caused a strain on his marriage and fractured his relationship with teammates like the hot-headed Vic Guthrie. And then there was an attempt on his life... After being shot in December 1981, Roy lay in a coma for several weeks while Sir Alf Ramsey stepped into the dugout for Melchester. Life in a lower division beckons, but at least the Rovers will be the most stylish team on the pitch with their new Gola sponsored kits!

Whenever a young David Beckham was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he'd always answer with the same response: I want to be a footballer. This English native got his wish when he joined the Manchester United team in 1991. Since then, he has been crossing, bending, and free-kicking his way to stardom. In his twenty-year career as a professional soccer player, he has won nineteen major trophies, and appeared at three FIFA World Cup tournaments. David Beckham has become an international cultural icon for his soccer skills, his charity work, and his fashionable wife and family. Young soccer fans are in for a treat with this Who HQ book.

Luka Modric - Ultimate Football Hero.

Luka Modric is the boy who overcame his small size to become the world's most creative midfield playmaker. During a childhood playing football in the streets of war-torn Croatia, Luka discovered he didn't need to be big to be the best - he could make a football do anything he wanted, and he could open defences with passes none of his friends would even have tried. Ever since, his rise to stardom as Real Madrid's Number 10 has been unstoppable.

Ultimate Football Heroes is a series of biographies telling the life-stories of the biggest and best footballers in the world and their incredible journeys from childhood fan to super-star professional player. Written in fast-paced, action-packed style these books are perfect for all the family to collect and share.

Perfect for football fans who like a good giggle, Football Jokes is filled with hundreds of the most hilarious football jokes around! With funny illustrations by Jane Eccles, young footie fanatics will be laughing through those all-important World Cup games, Premier League matches and European Cup finals. When is a footballer like a baby? When he dribbles. Who's in goal when the ghost team plays football? The ghoulie, of course Why is a football crowd learning to sing like a person opening a tin of sardines? They both have trouble with the key. How can a footballer stop his nose running? Put out a foot and trip it up.

Is Kevin De Bruyne your ultimate football hero? One of the best advanced playmakers in world football today, De Bruyne is part of the star-studded Manchester City team which has won both the EFL Cup and Premier League title. With Belgium, De Bruyne was also a third-place winner at the FIFA 2018 World Cup. Discover how De Bruyne's dedication to football saw him advance in Belgium's Gent youth system. Learn about how his hard work paid off as top club Chelsea swooped in to take him to the big league in 2012, and how his star status has grown from strength to strength since. The Football Superstars series is aimed at building a love of reading in young children, and is filled with fun cartoons, inspirational stories and a cast of characters chipping in with quotes, jokes and comments.

The No.1 football series - over 1 million copies sold! Gareth Southgate was once just a boy with a big England dream. But he knew he couldn't get there without hard work. He trained every day, honed his defensive qualities and quickly became a formidable centre-back for club and country. He went on to guide Middlesbrough, as captain, to a first major trophy in 128 years! His leadership qualities as a player would transform him into a manager. Discover how Southgate put the penalty pain of Euro 96 behind him and inspired the Three Lions through his kindness, tactical rigour and positive mindset, to their first ever the UEFA Euro final. Ultimate Football Heroes is a series of biographies telling the life stories of the biggest and best footballers in the world and their incredible journeys from childhood fan to superstar professional player. Written in fast-paced, action-packed style these books are perfect for all the family to collect and share.

She Shoots, She Scores! tells the empowering story of how women's football has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the world. Written by acclaimed YA novelist Catriona Clarke and with a foreword by England captain Steph Houghton, it is sure to inspire the next generation of female football superstars.

Young football fans will discover how the early female players overcame prejudice to set up their own teams, and read the compelling stories of players who beat the odds to become famous around the world: including Scotland's Rose Reilly, Asisat Oshoala from Nigeria, and Afghanistan's Nadia Nadim.

The book is packed with facts and stats about the Women's World Cup and the Olympics, plus pocket profiles of the world's top players – from Marta to Megan Rapinoe – and record-breaking teams, including the US national women's team and Olympique Lyonnais. What's more, discover the key skills you'll need to become a great goalkeeper, a tough-tackling defender or the world's next superstar striker!

Meet Alex Morgan - Ultimate Football Hero

Alex Morgan is co-captain of Team USA and the face of women's football right across the world. As the star who leads the American attacking line, her height, speed and skill make her impossible to defend, and have helped drive USA to World Cup and Olympic glory. Alex Morgan is football's real life 'Captain America'!

Ultimate Football Heroes is a series of biographies telling the life-stories of the biggest and best footballers in the world and their incredible journeys from childhood fan to super-star professional player. Written in fast-paced, action-packed style these books are perfect for all the family to collect and share.

Filled with quizzes, stats and little known facts, plus illustrated and told with all the fun of a Tom Gates novel, the Football Superstars series is perfect for young readers five and up. Is Raheem Sterling your ultimate football hero? He played his first Premier League match in 2015 and in just four years has scored 116 goals and made 114 assists in 388 games for club and country. Discover the rags-to-riches story of a young boy who loved playing football, even in the rain, and how he followed his passion to become one of the most lethal forwards in world football. Football Superstars is a series aimed at building a love of reading from a young age, with fun cartoons, inspirational stories, a simple narrative style and a cast of characters chipping in with quotes, jokes and comments. Find your football hero: Ronaldo Rules - out Jan 9th. Messi Rules - out Jan 9th. Kane Rules - out Apr 2nd. Mbappe Rules - out Apr 2nd. Hazard Rules - out Jun 11th. Sterling Rules - out Jun 11th.

Football fans love nothing more than to read about their favourite teams. Although this book is aimed at young teenagers, they will delight all ages with their mixture of funny and enlightening stories and will give hours of pleasure discovering quirky facts about your favourite team. Each title is also augmented with a selection of sketches that depict some of the stories within.

This acclaimed bilingual children's book, Spanish/English, is a fun way to introduce simple words and phrases in both languages and is sure to be a welcome resource at home and in schools and libraries. Monica Brown and Rudy Gutierrez team up to deliver what Kirkus called, in a starred review, an "inspiring blend of art and story," about the most famous soccer star in the world, Pele. This bilingual picture book will inspire, teach, and amaze readers as they learn about the man who revolutionized the sport of soccer. Do you know how a poor boy from Brazil who loved futbol more than anything else became the biggest soccer star the world has ever known? This is the true story of Pele, King of Soccer, the first man in the history of the sport to score a thousand goals and become a living legend. Rudy Gutierrez's dynamic illustrations make award-winning author Monica Brown's story of this remarkable sports hero come alive!

An action-packed sticker book full of sporty scenes and over 350 colourful stickers to complete the pictures. Scenes include footballers at the training ground, getting ready for the match and at a victory parade. Includes blank football kit stickers for children to colour in with their favourite team strip.

THE TIGER YEARS! Relive the best Roy of the Rovers stories from the 1970s in this exciting anthology of reprinted classic strips, celebrating over 65 years of the iconic football comic. The seventies was a very turbulent time in Britain. Following on from the optimism of the sixties, the country faced a decade of strikes and power cuts. Luckily for the fans of Melchester Rovers, Roy Race and his loyal time mates provided great moments of glory for their fans, starting with European Cup final win in 1973 in the year that the club celebrated its 50th anniversary. It was the decade in which footballers became real superstars - a time when Melchester goalkeeper Charlie Carter had to choose between staying at the club or perusing a burgeoning career as a pop singer. And it was a period when Roy Race truly cemented himself as the heart, soul and brain of the club by taking on the role of player manager.

Football fans love nothing more than to read about their favourite teams. Although this books is aimed at young teenagers they will delight all ages with their mixture of funny and enlightening stories and will give hours of pleasure discovering quirky facts about your favourite team. Each title is also augmented with a selection of sketches by the young sketch artist Becky Welton that depict some of the stories within.

By the time Kelly Smith was nine years old, she was already so good she was running rings around the boys at her local club and scoring goals for fun. But angry parents complained she was making their sons look silly, and Kelly had to move to a girls' team. From that day, she knew she had to be twice as skillful and brave as any boy to succeed in the game she loved. Smith is the story of how the girl from Watford refused to be held back, and became an Arsenal superstar and the England women's national team's top scorer.

The Official Manchester United Annual 2016 tells the story of the last season for the Most Famous Football Club in the World! This year's Annual includes profiles of all your favourite players and introduces you the year's new signings. Test yourself with quizzes and puzzles. This picture packed Annual is a must-have for every Red supporter.

A fun and quirky story against anything but your average team, perfect for children learning to read. When Seamus and his scaredy-ba Granda go for a night-time walk, they don't expect to find a group of ghosts in an old barn. Greg the Ghoul, Phantom Pete and friends are too scared to go up into heaven, in case they are sent back down to hell, so they are just waiting around in the barn, getting bored. Seamus has an idea to relieve their boredom - they should form a football team and play other ghosts! The ghosts are nervous, but Seamus and his Granda help them get fit and improve their game. Soon they are champion players, powering their way through teams on earth, heaven and even hell! The Reading Ladder series helps children to enjoy learning to read. It features well-loved authors, classic characters and favourite topics, so that children will find something to excite and engage them in every title they pick up. It's the first step towards a lasting love of reading. Level 3 Reading Ladder titles are perfect for fluent readers who are beginning to read exciting, challenging stories independently. * Varied sentences * Detailed illustrations to enjoy * Chapters * Interesting characters and themes * A rich range of vocabulary * More complex storylines to stretch confident readers All Reading Ladder titles are developed with a leading literacy consultant, making them perfect for use in schools and for parents keen to support their children's reading. Book band: White.

Meet David De Gea - Ultimate Football Hero.

David De Gea is the Spanish superstar who earned a dream move to Manchester United and proved himself to be their best goalkeeper since the legendary Peter Schmeichel. David has had to face the pressure of expectation throughout his career, but his amazing saves have kept United in the hunt for trophies year after year, no matter the pressure. This is the story of one boy's mission to become the best keeper in the world.

Ultimate Football Heroes is a series of biographies telling the life-stories of the biggest and best footballers in the world and their incredible journeys from childhood fan to super-star professional player. Written in fast-paced, action-packed style these books are perfect for all the family to collect and share.

This lyrical non-fiction picture book celebrates the simple joys of football, whatever your background or ability. Rather than focusing on rules, skills, superstars, big clubs and record-breaking feats, this uplifting book for young children celebrates the planet's best-loved sport and shows how the world's most accessible game - where the only equipment needed is something that rolls - has evolved into a force for unity, and a sport for absolutely everyone. Spreads cover how football can be played by all ages, genders, and abilities, whatever your racial, cultural or economic background, and whether you're in a state-of-the-art stadium or just a simple patch of scrubland.

The No.1 football series - over 1 million copies sold! 'It's time to shine,' Paul said to himself as he walked out of the tunnel and onto to the Old Trafford pitch.' Pogba tells the exciting story of how French wonder-kid Paul Pogba became Europe's best young player, and finally fulfilled his dream of returning to his boyhood club Manchester United in a world-record transfer. The sky is the limit for United's new star. Have you read them all?