A budding football star strives to prove his potential.

Inspired by the childhood of NFL superstars Tiki and Ronde Barber, this middle grade novel is a story of teamwork, perseverance, and what it takes to be a champion. “Hut! Hut! Go long, Tiki!” Tiki and Ronde’s twelfth summer is winding down—the nights are getting shorter and the evenings cooler. That means two things: The first day of junior high is just a few days away, and it’s almost the start of football season at last. With two championships and an 8-2 season last year, Tiki and Ronde are ready to graduate from the Peewee League and hit the field as starting players for the Hidden Valley Eagles. But junior high is a lot bigger than elementary school. The competition for starting spots is stiff, and seniority rules. If Tiki and Ronde make it past tryouts and cuts, will they get the chance to play, or will they have to spend the season watching from the bench with the other seventh graders?

EIGHT STORIES THAT CHAMPION THE SPIRIT OF A SPORT LIKE NO OTHER A young footballer struggles to make his mark even as he fights, the ruthless exploitation of local football clubs, his family?s strained financial circumstances and the humiliation of being the son of a man accused of deliberately throwing a winning goal in a long-ago match. A veteran player with an eclectic record prepares to play the final game of his career. A former star footballer battling grave illness relives the days of exhilarating wins and frustrating rivalries that sustain his spirit. And, on a turf slightly removed from the football field, a sportsman?s obsession over justice being done to a wronged fellow player leads him into penury. Featuring the acclaimed novellas Striker and Stopper, and all of Moti Nandy?s football-related short stories, this collection captures the heady highs and crushing lows, the heroism ? and the ignominy ? of sport.

Bloomsbury High Low books encourage and support reading practice by providing gripping, age-appropriate stories for struggling and reluctant readers, those with dyslexia, or those with English as an additional language. Printed on tinted paper and with a dyslexia friendly font and illustrations, The Football Trials is aimed at readers aged 12+ and has a manageable length (80 pages) and reading age (9+). Produced in association with reading experts at Catch Up, a charity which aims to address underachievement caused by literacy and numeracy difficulties. This exciting coming of age story follows a boy from a tower block as he joins a premier league football academy. Jackson is good at football... really good at football. And when a scout from United spots him in the park, it seems like he might just have the chance to make it out of his high-rise tower block and into the premier league. But the other boys have been playing together since they were young and Jackson isn't sure he'll ever fit in – or be able to manage his fiery temper. Book band: Brown

When Tou Yang's football team plays the team from his former school, where he was picked on for being small, he struggles to remain focused and use his skills against Darren, who still wants to bully him.

It’s America’s most popular sport, played by thousands, watched by millions, and generating billions in revenues every year. It’s also America’s most controversial sport, haunted by the specter of life-threatening injuries and plagued by scandal, even among its most venerable personalities and institutions. At the college level, we often tie football’s tales of corruption and greed to its current popularity and revenue potential, and we have vague notions of a halcyon time--before the new College Football Playoff, power conferences, and huge TV contracts. Perhaps we conjure images of young Ivy Leaguers playing a gentleman’s game, exemplifying the collegial in collegiate. What we don’t imagine is a game described in 1905, not today, as "a social obsession--this boy-killing, man-mutillating, education-prostituting, gladiatorial sport." In The Opening Kickoff, Dave Revsine tells the riveting story of the formative period of American football (1890-1915). It was a time that saw the game’s meteoric rise, fueled by overflow crowds, breathless newspaper coverage and newfound superstars—including one of the most thrilling and mysterious the sport has ever seen. But it was also a period racked by controversy in academics, recruiting, and physical brutality that, in combination, threatened football’s very existence. A vivid storyteller, Revsine brings it all to life in a captivating narrative.

Tiki and Ronde were the stars of their Pee Wee football team, the Cave Springs Vikings. But middle school is much bigger than elementary school and it’s a whole different game—on and off the field. When Coach Spangler takes a job coaching for the high school team and Tiki’s old science teacher Mr. Wheeler is tapped for the middle school coaching job, the beginning of the school year and the football season is off to a bumpy start. But through working together, the boys discover that the whole team is bigger than any of its parts.