The Unlucky Eleven

“Perfectly pitched (no pun intended)” – The Letterpress Project

“A great fun read for football fans young and old” – The Book Activist, Blog

“Laughs, friendship and a spot of superstition in a big-hearted football tale from the consistently brilliant Phil Earle” – The Bookseller

“The action flows, both on the pitch and in the dressing room, and the story feels as real and authentic as a pair of muddy football boots. Steve May’s illustrations are bang on and in Barrington Stoke style, this is accessible even to reluctant or dyslexic readers. A winner!” – LoveReading4Kids

PHIL EARLE was born and raised in Hull and kick-started his love of books with a job as a children’s bookseller. Phil now works in children’s publishing and is the award-winning author of several books for young readers including Get Me Out of Here, a recent collaboration with Andy McNab, and the young adult novels Being Billy, and Mind the Gap. Phil’s When the Sky Falls was Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month for June 2021.

STEVE MAY has been a life-long doodler, studying fine art and film making in Nottingham and Animation at the Royal College of Art. Steve’s scratchy spontaneous illustration style made him the perfect partner for Puffin’s best-selling Dennis the Menace fiction series, Harry Hill’s Matt Mills series and Francesca Simon’s Terrible Viking books. He has also been happily immersed in a world of burps, beards and bogeys as part of his collaboration with Gareth Jones on the Pet Defenders series.