Jamie Johnson #6: Final Whistle by Dan Freedman (author)

It’s the final whistle for Jamie Johnson! After leading Scotland to near-victory in the World Cup, Jamie has landed his ultimate dream job: playing for one of the best teams in the world, Barcelona. But when disaster strikes and his days of football glory feel like a distant memory, Jamie’s future will begin exactly where everything first kicked off… Join Jamie in his last adrenaline-fuelled adventure, which captures all the intense highs and lows of the beautiful game!

True-to-the-game footie fiction – now a hit TV series!

Dan Freedman is a former FA official writer and editor

He toured with the England team during two World Cups

“Jamie Johnson is my type of footballer” – Ryan Giggs

Product Details

Series

Jamie Johnson (book 6)

Format

Paperback

ISBN

9781407111445

Publisher

Scholastic

Date published

July 2nd, 2012

Lexile measure

870L Lexiles are the global standard in reading assessment. They are unique as they are able to measure a child and a book on the same scale – ensuring the right book gets to the right child at the right time.

For more details see What is a lexile?.

Accelerated Reader

AR book level: 5.8; Middle years; 5.0 points

Other details

224 pages

Condition

New

Part of this Series

Jamie Johnson

Author/Illustrator

Dan Freedman

I was born in London in 1977 but my early writing career got off to a pretty rocky start. At my nursery school I used to write my words so close together that they got all jumbled up and no one could read them.

To be honest, my football career didn’t kick off brilliantly either. My parents were divorced when I was very young so my dad thought that, when he saw me, taking me to football matches would be a good idea. But I was only about four or five. It was quite scary and I didn’t like it at all. I used to plead with him to take me home so I could watch Buck Rogers on TV. But we both persevered and that’s where the football seeds were sewn. These days it’s me that drags him up from Brighton so we can watch games together.

By the time I joined school, football was pretty much the centre of my life. I never thought I was obsessed – I just liked it a lot – but those around me thought I was.

But I wanted to prove that I could be successful and still focus on football. So, during school and university I started to build a pretty decent CV for myself. I did work experience at, among other places, Arsenal FC, Radio Five LIVE, Carlton TV, The Mail on Sunday and Sky Sports. I’d worked out that if I wanted to get a job in football, I’d have to prove my ambition to people. Otherwise, I’d just sound like every other football mad kid: “I want to work in football.” You have to stand out from the crowd in some way if you can.

My CV came in handy when, in 2000, after I’d graduated and gone travelling around Australia and New Zealand, I wrote to The FA to see if they had any vacancies. They called within a couple of days and said they were actually recruiting for graduates at that very time. What luck!

I was so nervous for the interview but I gave it everything. I didn’t want them to think that I didn’t want it enough.

Thankfully I got the job and it has lead to some unbelievable experiences. As Editor of The FA my job around the England Team is bring to life for the public what goes on behind the scenes and to give the players and coaches the platform to talk directly to the fans. The most important thing is getting the players to trust you, to understand you’re on their side.

It was when I wanted to buy a present for an 11 year-old football mad boy that the idea to write this book actually struck. There didn’t seem to be a football novel for kids. I couldn’t understand it. I know that if someone had given me one when I was 11, I probably would have read it in two days flat.

I also knew that writing about football was something that I could do. So I did it.