''Half a Team'' is a 1980

children's novel Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

by prolific British author

Michael Hardcastle Michael Hardcastle (6 February 1933 – 17 January 2019) was a British author of sports fiction for children. He has written more than one hundred and forty books on a range of sporting subjects but is probably best known for his books about A ...

Plot summary

The book is the sixth in Hardcastle's series about a Junior

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

League and features recurring characters Nick Abel- Smith (

United! ''United!'' is a British television series which was produced by the BBC between 1965 and 1967, and was broadcast twice-weekly on BBC1. The series followed the fortunes of a fictional second division football team, Brentwich United. The football ...

1973, Away from Home (1974) and Lester Rowan (Away from Home). The book follows the story of Abel-Smith and fellow young footballer Steve Sewell as they attempt to overcome the humiliation of being dropped from their respective teams ahead of a five-a-side tournament. Joining forces they create a new team, The Swifts, and, after overcoming a series of obstacles, including getting Steve from Manchester back to their home town without his parents' knowledge, enter the tournament and finally get the opportunity to take on their former teammates and prove their worth.Hardcastle, Michael ''Half a Team'' (Methuen, 1980, )

References

{{Portal , Children's literature 1980 British novels British children's novels Children's books about association football 1980 children's books Methuen Publishing books