"Set in 1920, and based on true story of the Dick, Kerr football legends, this tells the gripping, inspiring tale of an aspiring female footballer"
March 2022 Book of the Month
Rooted in the remarkable real-life story of the pioneering female football team that blazed a trail for women’s football (and beyond), this third book in Eve Ainsworth’s inspiring Dick, Kerr Girls series is an absolute screamer of a novel. A top-of-the-league triumph with clear appeal for female football fans and players, plus plenty to grip and move all kinds of readers, for it’s also a universal story of determination, family life and strife, friendship, confusing new emotions, and hope.
Twelve-year-old Martha, little sister to Hettie and Freddie who’ll be known to readers from the previous novels, has just started training alongside the world-famous, world-class Dick, Kerr football team, which provokes envy and snide sexist remarks from some of the local lads she’s always enjoyed football kickabouts with. But inspired by the team’s star player, Lily, Martha is determined to succeed.
Alongside this, though, Martha’s hard-working dad falls seriously ill. Then, as the women’s game draws record-breaking crowds, pioneers playing evening matches under searchlights, and raises huge sums of money for former servicemen, detractors raise their voices. Some believe “men’s football is still the only proper sport”, that “no girl should be out playing rough sport”, and Martha’s teacher believes “God never intended for women to be running up and down football pitches”.
The wider historic context is fascinating, too, and many areas of the characters’ lives illuminate this period of British history, from the prejudice against women’s football, and Hettie working in the Dick, Kerr & Co munitions factory, to Freddie forging a new career after being injured in WWI, and people having to pay for medical care in this pre-NHS era. These strands of social history will provoke thought and discussion as Martha’s struggles and determination resonate, grip and inspire. She’s loving and perceptive, bold and confident, but prone to patches of self-doubt — a fully-rounded, relatable character readers will root for.
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