Summer 2025 Women’s Euros in Fiction

Women’s Euros 2025 Virtual / Competition & more.

I have written many sports stories featuring girls as the main character:

Secret FC (2010), 6+
Typhoon (2016), 7+
My First Football Game (2013), 4+
Armistice Runner (2018), 9+
Rocky (2020), 9+
Gus the Fantastic Football Cat (2018), 5+
Game Changer (2022), 10+
Soccer Diaries I, 2,3 (2023,2024,2025), 10+

Find out more about them below….

Women’s Euros 2025 virtual

#WEURO2025 kicks off this summer. Join me & Mr Dilly for a free virtual event for #schools as we bring you the history of the women’s game, some of the tournament buzz & encourage reading and writing. Please sign up here

and join us 4th July 11am:

#WomensEuros2025

Women’s Euros 2025 Competition

Win a set of my books and a virtual visit for your school with me!

Match up these ten characters to their books … use this pdf as a take home activity … (to come).

A) Armistice Runner
B) Game Changer
C) Gus the Fantastic Football Cat
D) My First Football Game
E) Rocky
F) Rocky Takes LA (Soccer Diaries I)
G) Rocky’s Big Move (Soccer Diaries 2)
H) Rocky Goes for Goal (Soccer Diaries 3)
I) Secret FC
J) Typhoon

More WEuro 2025 Activities

Rocky Doodle Doo Colour in and add your own football linked doodles to download and print off here

Play Rocky’s 2023 World Cup Reading Game in the classroom or library and discover lots of way to enjoy football and enjoy reading here.

Learn to draw Rocky with Lisa Henke here.

Colouring

Sharp-shooter Rocky is testing her brother Roy’s goal-keeping skills. Can you add a crowd or maybe some more players and colour them all in here?

More about my books featuring girls playing football:

4 + First Football Game

Join Sam as she goes to her first ever football game. This exciting narrative follows Sam’s day from beginning to end, describing her journey to the stadium, the football songs she hears and the goals!

Published by Collins Educational. More about First Football Game here

5 + GUS THE FAMOUS FOOTBALL CAT

A funny and heartwarming story about a girl and her pet cat, who becomes a World Cup celebrity!

There’s a football challenge at Yusra’s school and everyone wants to win. Which class can find the best way to predict England’s World Cup results? Yusra has an idea – her pet cat Gus could help! As Gus keeps guessing the scores right, the word spreads and soon everyone wants a piece of the famous football cat. But is the life of a celebrity as purrfect as it seems?

Published by Egmont. More about Gus here

7 + SECRET FC

Lily, Maddie and Zach can’t believe it when the new headmaster bans football in the playground. Living in the inner-city, there is nowhere else to play. Then Zack has a brilliant plan and soon a very special secret football club is formed . . .

Published by Barrington Stoke

More about Secret FC here

9 + Rocky of the Rovers

Rocky is the sixth and historic book in the brand new series of illustrated middle grade fiction titles starring Roy of the Rovers, the classic British children’s football hero rebooted for the 21st century. This time, it’s all about Rocky, Roy’s football-mad younger sister!

A struggling student and brilliant footballer, Rocky Race is many things, but to most people she’s just Roy Race’s little sister. It’s not much fun – especially as Melchester Rovers head to the League Cup Final.

Rocky’s sick of everyone knowing her through Roy, she’s had enough of school, and she’s even started having panic attacks.

Now it’s up to Rocky to find her own way – as a person and a player – and she’s going to need all her grit and determination to do it…

Published by Rebellion. More about Rocky here

9 + Game Changer

The newly formed Melchester Women’s team are going from strength to strength in their first full season of professional football, lead by the tenacious Rocky Race. Can she maintain her match-winning performances? And just where does her footballing future lie?

‘I LOVED this book! I love how the story turns from one stage to another. I would definitely recommend it to any girl who enjoys football! I love that Rocky has real determination and passion for the game.’ Jess, Year 5.

Rocky of the Rovers book – Game Changer – was selected for the 2023 Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge. Game Changer is the latest story about Rocky Race, sister of Roy of the Rovers, and has already been featured on the front page of the Times newspaper.

More about Rocky here

9 + Rocky Takes LA

The Soccer Diaries is a brand new series starring Rocky Race, a British footballer looking to make it big in a US soccer school.

Rocky Race is not your average fourteen year old. She’s determined, ambitious and the best football player you’ve ever seen. So, when she gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend a prestigious soccer camp in California, USA, she takes it. But far from home, Rocky suddenly finds herself out of her comfort zone. Fake friends, her own anxieties and a brand new world with strange rules all threaten to derail her new life before it’s even started – does Rocky have what it takes to succeed?

Published by Rebellion. More about Rocky here

Soccer Diaries 2-Rocky’s Big Move

The exciting sequel in The Soccer Diaries series starring Rocky Race, a British footballer looking to make it big.

Fourteen, hard as nails and magic on the pitch, Rocky Race is one of the best up and coming young footballers in the UK. But does she have what it takes to make it as a soccer pro in California?

Rocky Race is going for goal – but what about her grades?

Rocky Race is living the dream: she’s won a scholarship to a prestigious high school in Los Angeles, where she gets to play soccer and train for going pro. She’s got an amazing best friend, and a supportive mum and brother back home in the UK. But living away from home isn’t easy, and fitting in with American kids in high school is scary and new. Not to mention she has to keep her grades up if she wants to stay on the pitch! Will Rocky survive high school?

Published by Rebellion. More about Rocky here

NEW – Soccer Diaries 3 Rocky Goes for Goal

Now that Rocky has her grades under control, she can focus on the most important thing: she is going to the California Soccer Championships! With only weeks to go until the big match, Rocky is starting to… get nervous? But she never gets scared before a match! So why is she having nightmares, and dreading training after school? Everyone is counting on her, and she knows that winning the championship gives her a better chance of going pro. With so much pressure, will Rocky be able to step up and take the winning shot?

The exciting sequel in The Soccer Diaries series starring Rocky Race, a British footballer looking to make it big. Perfect for fans of Up For Air and The Kicks!

Published by Rebellion. More about Rocky here

Buy Books

Signed and dedicated copies of all my books are available personalised to order from my local independent children’s bookshop “The Thoughtful Spot” here.

With an extra special Christmas or birthday card from me on request!

Overseas : FREE Delivery worldwide from The Book Depository.
Australia: Boomerang
Canada: Amazon Canada
New Zealand: Wheelers
USA : Indigo books

Visit my bookshop or support your local bookshopHIVE