Footy! Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Every Saturday morning Joe played footy with his team, the mighty Dragons.

  Joe was great at kicking the ball.

  He was super at bouncing it, and he was terrific at marking it too.

  But when it came to handballing, Joe wasn’t very good at all.

  There was less than two minutes of the game to go when the ball came Joe’s way.

  He marked it on his chest and ran with it as fast as he could. He bounced the ball once, and then again, before he was grabbed from behind.

  ‘Pass it to me!’ yelled his teammates Ben and Lizzie.

  Joe did his best to shrug off the tackle.

  ‘Quick! Get rid of it!’ shouted Angus, Joe’s best friend.

  Joe tried to handball the footy to Angus.

  He tried to hit the ball with his fist, but he fumbled and it dropped to the ground.

  ‘Dropping the ball!’ shouted the umpire.

  A player from the other team, the Wildcats, swooped in and scooped up the footy. He took off with it.

  ‘Play on!’ the umpire said.

  Joe and his team raced after the ball.

  But the Wildcats kicked the ball through the goals – winning the game by just one point.

  Joe felt awful. He blamed himself for losing the match.

  ‘If my handball didn’t stink, we would’ve won,’ he said to Angus.

  ‘Well done out there, kids,’ said the Dragons’ coach, Mr Murray. ‘You all should be very proud of yourselves for playing such a great game.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said Joe. ‘My handball lost the game for us. If there was a contest for the worst and suckiest handball of all time . . . I’d be the world champion.’

  ‘You’re being too hard on yourself,’ said Coach Murray.

  Joe shook his head.

  Coach Murray frowned, then he handballed the footy to Joe.

  ‘I think you were terrific out there. But if you’re worried about it, then you should practise your handballing before our next game. You know what they say, practice makes perfect.’

  So that’s what Joe decided to do. He was going to practise his handballing every day for the next week.

  On Sunday morning, Joe handballed a Nerf footy off his bedroom wall. It was easy! He couldn’t miss the wall.

  His dog, Fang, would jump for the ball, catch it in the air and bring it back.

  Fang was awesome at taking specky marks!

  At school on Monday, Joe took every chance to practise his handballing.

  ‘Can I borrow a pencil?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Yep,’ Joe said. He handballed his pencil case to her. ‘Help yourself!’

  But the pencil case flew past Emma. It landed in the turtle tank.

  Shelly, the pet turtle, moved the fastest anyone had ever seen her move!

  Before long, Angus, Oliver and Lizzie had asked to borrow a pencil from Joe.

  He was happy to handball his pencil case across the desk to all of them.

  But Miss Smitty, his teacher, didn’t look happy about football skill drills in her classroom.

  On Tuesday, Joe was on canteen duty.

  He handballed loaves of bread onto the cutting boards.

  Only some of them missed.

  That day a lot of kids had wobbly looking sandwiches.

  On Wednesday after school, Joe was at his friend Lucy’s house.

  ‘That toy bunny is the same size as a footy,’ Joe said.

  He picked it out from a big pile of soft toys on Lucy’s bed.

  ‘Yeah, so?’ Lucy shrugged.

  Joe grinned. He handballed the soft toy through the open window.

  ‘Joe, no!’ Lucy cried. ‘Bunnies can’t fly!’

  Soon every soft toy had been handballed out the window.

  Joe’s handballing was definitely getting better.

  On Thursday afternoon, Joe was helping his mum bake a cake. When she asked him to pass over a bag of flour, Joe handballed it to her.

  ‘No, Joe! The bag is open!’

  But it was too late – a puffy cloud of flour went everywhere!

  His mum looked like a very annoyed ghost.

  On Friday night, Joe hid behind the sofa. He was spying on his sister, Rachel.

  He was armed with three small couch pillows.

  ‘The enemy is in position,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Time to bring out my number one weapon. Okay, troops. Operation Handball set to go. ATTACK!’

  He handballed the pillows one after each other straight at Rachel’s head.

  THOOMP! THOOMP! THOOMP!

  ‘JOE!’ screamed Rachel. ‘Why you little . . . !’

  That night Joe also got some sprinting practice in, trying to outrun his angry sister.

  On Saturday morning, Joe lined up to play footy with the mighty Dragons. They were up against a team called the Panthers.

  It was looking like the match of the season. The score was tied. Each team had kicked five goals and three points.

  There was one minute left in the game.

  Joe had the ball and he sprinted towards the goals.

  ‘Kick it, Joe!’ everyone yelled. ‘Kick it!’

  But before he could, Joe was grabbed from behind.

  It was just like the last game. Joe had to handball the footy!

  Angus was running past. ‘Joe! To me!’ he yelled.

  Joe hoped for the best. He made a fist and hit the footy.

  The football fired out like a cannonball. It spun like a torpedo. It shot right into the hands of Angus – it was the perfect handball!

  Angus ran on and kicked a goal, just as the umpire blew his whistle.

  The game was over.

  The Dragons had won!

  Joe’s teammates rushed to him and Angus.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’

  ‘What a play!’

  ‘That was the best handball – ever!’

  Everyone cheered.

  ‘Well, Joe,’ said Coach Murray. ‘It looks like you did what I told you to do.’

  Joe smiled.

  ‘You were right, Coach,’ he said. ‘Practice makes perfect. And next time I practise I might even use a footy!’

  Not every sport is easy for everyone. Even if you’re a natural at sport and you really love it, you might find that some skills are harder to learn than others.

  When you’re learning something new the only solution is to practise, practise, practise . . .

  Joe is used to footy being easy. But he finds a way to make practising fun, and you can too.

  Handballing is an important skill in Aussie Rules football. Your handballs need to be fast, powerful and accurate.

  Here’s how to handball a footy:

  Hold the ball with the stitching up – use the hand you don’t write with.

  Make your other hand into a fist.

  Punch the ball from the back.

  As the ball moves forwards, remember to follow through with your arm – don’t stop when your fist hits the ball.

  Other footy skills include kicking, bouncing and taking a mark. So ask a friend or a family member to show you how, and get out there on the field!

  Why did Cinderella get kicked off the football team?

  Because she ran away from the ball.

  Why isn’t footy played in the jungle?

  There are too many cheetahs.

  What’s harder to catch the faster you run in a footy match?

  Your breath!

  What do you call a pig who plays footy?

  A ball hog!

  What do you call it when a dinosaur kicks a footy through the goals?

  A dinoscore!

 
Knock! Knock!

  Who’s there?

  Canoe!

  Canoe who?

  Canoe come over and play footy with me?

  How do you stop squirrels playing football in the garden?

  Hide the footy – it drives them nuts.

  Why don’t grasshoppers go to many football games?

  They go to the cricket instead.

  Did you know?

  AFL stands for Australian Football League.

  Australian Football is also called Aussie Rules.

  Aussie Rules was invented in 1858 by a couple of cricketers who wanted to keep fit during the winter.

  The first matches were played on a very large rectangular field.

  Aussie Rules may have been partly based on an Aboriginal game called marngrook.

  The Brownlow Medal is awarded to the overall best and fairest player in the AFL.

  The first recorded Aussie Rules match was played between two Melbourne schools, Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar.

  Taking a ‘specky’ mark in Aussie Rules means catching the footy over the top of your opponent. Other names for a great mark are ‘screamer’, ‘hanger’ and ‘Jezza’.

  Both the Carlton Blues and the Essendon Bombers have won 16 premierships in the AFL.

  The Collingwood Football Club has the largest membership fan base in the AFL.

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  First published by Penguin group (Australia), 2015

  Text copyright © Red Wolf Entertainment Pty Ltd, 2015

  Illustrations copyright © Tom Jellett, 2015

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Design by Tony Palmer © Penguin Group (Australia)

  puffin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74348-510-1

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  Felice Arena, Footy!

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