Saving Grace (cartoon strip by Steve English)

The seventh consecutive instalment of Saving Grace, the strip about a young, football-mad goalkeeper drawn by the magazine’s regular cartoonist Steve English. It runs along the foot of the Little Kicks page, sharing the space with the Star Six interview. This episode turns on a decision Grace cannot believe, an appeal to the referee, and a punchline built on video review reaching places it probably should not – a joke that dates the strip as precisely as any news page in the issue. Above it, Toni Duggan answers young reader Amber’s questions, naming Kelly Smith as the best English player past or present and crediting her mum, her grandad and former coach Mo Marley, while side panels note her Supercopa win with Atletico Madrid on 16 January and the goal she scored on her eighteenth birthday as England beat Sweden to win the 2009 Under-19 Championship.