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Issy and George share an exclusive chapter from the Ultimate Football Heroes audiobook on Jude Bellingham. One of the five best players of the 2026 World Cup. First, the numbers. Bellingham scored seven goals and got an assist across 616 minutes at the tournament, the most an English player has ever managed at a major finals. Gary Lineker and Harry Kane both stopped at six. Alan Shearer got five at the Euros. Even the Lionesses' record-setters, Ellen White in 2019 and Beth Mead at Euro 2022, topped out at six. Jude got seven. Then comes the chapter itself: "Hagley's Next Football Hero." Long before the Bernabeu and the World Cup, there was a five-year-old boy on a muddy touchline in the West Midlands, watching his dad. Mark Bellingham was a policeman Monday to Saturday and a goal machine on Sundays, a sharp-shooting non-league striker who banged in 47 goals in 47 games for Leamington, firing the club into the Southern League Premier Division for the first time in 24 years. This is the story of how young Jude went from a boy who would rather pick the ball up and throw it, to a boy who had well and truly caught the football bug. Want the rest of the story? The full audiobook, Ultimate Football Heroes: Bellingham, is out now on all major platforms, including Audible and Spotify. And you can still buy the book the old-fashioned way, from all good bookshops. The Ultimate Football Heroes books are the bestselling football biography series for kids, over 50 titles covering everyone from Messi and Ronaldo to Aitana Bonmati and Lauren James. Find them wherever you buy books. Got something to say? Send us a voice note or an email at ufh@stripped.media. Name, age, who you support, joke if you've got one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
