Defenders 3 : Pitch Invasion
The past is closer than Nadiya and Seth think …
Seth and Nadiya specialise in solving hauntings at football venues by ghosts from famous historical settings.
A tense Seth is waiting to hear if his mum’s got the ‘all-clear’. But instead of relaxing in Cornwall, Seth is haunted by visions. Heads on spikes – surrounding an Iron Age hill fort to keep intruders away.
When Seth meets two football-crazy brothers from Aleppo their stories offer him a new sense of courage. Can he look death in the face and restore calm to the present?
“I hope Seth’s story in Pitch Invasion through welcoming two Syrian boys will encourage us all to be kind to our friends, neighbours and visitors wherever they are from.” Tom
Great way into : KS2 Iron Age Celts & Refugee topics
Published by Barrington Stoke
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Read Chapter 1 of Pitch Invasion here
Defenders is a new trilogy:
Book 1 – Killing Ground
Book 2 – Dark Arena
Book 3 – Pitch Invasion
Seth and Nadiya specialise in solving ghostly hauntings at football venues, with settings including:
- Anglo-Saxon village, Yorkshire
- Roman Amphitheatre, City of London
- Iron Age Celtic hill fort, Cornwall
And each book ties into a KS2 history theme:
- Iron Age Celts
- Roman Britain
- Vikings and Anglo-Saxons
Resources:
Iron Age history quiz taken based on Defenders: Pitch Invasion here
Writing Pitch Invasion
Tom “Recently I visited an Iron Age fort – Castle an Dinas at Columb St Major in Cornwall. I wanted to find out what one might look like. And I had a good reason: I am going to write a book set on an Iron Age fort
You might not think it looks much like a fort, but it was built roughly 4000 years ago, so it is going to have weathered a bit. That’s because it was built out of ramparts of soil and with wooden posts along the tops. All the wooden posts have rotted away now, but the three rings of ditches and raised ramparts are still really visible. You can see if from above here:
Visiting a place like this is realy important to help me get a story right. By going there I found out it was huge. The middle section is as big as a football pitch. I also saw that a farmer uses it to graze his or her sheep on. Who would have thought an ancient monument would be covered in sheep? But, actually it’s a good idea. What better way to keep the grass short? It would be quite hard to mow.”
Tom continues “The book I am writing at the moment features a boy called Seth who can see echoes of the past. When he visits a football pitch that is near an Iron Age fort he can actually see the village within the fort. He can watch how people lived two thousands years ago at around the time the Romans invaded our islands.
T
his is a sign I saw when visiting another Iron Age fort at the foot of St Catherine’s Hill in Winchester. If you look at the sign at the foot of the hill, you can see how the hill might have looked when it was used as a fort.
Seeing that picture helped me. As did visiting the fort. I made a short film of my visit to St Catherine’s Hill. I talk about how going to the hill helps me imagine the settings of my story.”
Video 1 – Researching Pitch Invasion part 1
Video 2 – Researching Pitch Invasion part 2
Video 3 – Refugees in Pitch Invasion
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Signed and dedicated copies of all my books are available personalised to order from my local independent children’s bookshop “The Thoughtful Spot” here.
