Specky Magee and the Spirit of the Game

Specky has been selected to represent Victoria in the National Carnival in Adelaide with the Under Fifteen team. His friend Brian Edwards is playing too, but he lives in Mildura – a six and a half hour drive from Melbourne.
Brian stays with the Magees so he can be closer to training. When Brian’s family invites Specky to come and stay with them, he’s thrilled to be able to spend the weekend in Brian’s home town, Rivergum – on the banks of the Murray. There he meets a whole lot of interesting characters and plays country football for the first time… against adults. But more is at stake than the outcome of just one game. Struggling to find players and funds to keep the club alive, the coach and president of the Rivergum Red Fins has entered into a bet with their greatest rivals – the team from Mildura. If they win their club gets enough cash to keep them going for years – if they lose, the team dies, along with one hundred years of football and town history, and Brian will have to play for the hated Mildura City Bull Ants…

Can Specky make a difference on the day? Can the team even get enough players to fill a side? And who is the mysterious past hero of the club that Specky keeps hearing about – Razorback Jack?

Back at home, Specky’s girlfriend, Christina, goes away for good, but for everyone else love is in the air… A gorgeous new French girl, boarding with Tiger Girl, starts a competition between the boys. But who does she actually like? And there might be romance on the horizon for TG, if she can just make up her mind…

On the family front, it’s Alice’s 16th birthday, but can she be trusted to throw a party? And what will be revealed when she does? And will the Magee’s new baby be a girl or a boy?

The sixth book of the bestselling Specky Magee series (the fifth published by Penguin), has all the football excitement you’d expect, and this time Specky gets to experience grass roots footy at its best.