Saving Grace (cartoon strip by Steve English)

The launch instalment of Saving Grace, a cartoon strip drawn by Steve English, the magazine’s regular cartoonist, and introduced on the Little Kicks page as ‘our brand-new cartoon strip featuring a young, footie-mad goalkeeping ace, the amazing Grace’. It follows Grace in goal and is pitched squarely at the magazine’s youngest readers, sharing the page with the snaps parents had sent in of their children with favourite players: Tallulah Tillett, recovering from a broken arm, with West Ham’s Kate Longhurst, and Emma with her idol Lee Alexander. Below them runs a letter from ten-year-old Isabella Toliani of Belstone Girls Under-12s, whose dad won the September boots giveaway, on the thrill of tackling and running down the wing and her admiration for Chelsea’s Millie Bright and Fran Kirby. The strip arrived as She Kicks broadened its section for younger readers alongside Born Kicking and Star Six.