Joey Rippa is one of the most naturally gifted footballers England's Second Division has ever seen. He's also one of the least interested in that fact.
When Plymouth Argyle's pre-season tour brings him back to Australia, Rippa arrives late, sunburnt, and carrying an impressive holiday paunch. His long-suffering manager Bobby Noll - the man who discovered him surfing a wave in Western Australia and somehow turned him into Plymouth's Player of the Year - is not impressed.
Back in England, Rippa is juggling the demands of a new season, an unexpected international call-up, a backpackers hostel full of 52 nationalities, an underground lawn bowls operation of questionable legality, and the arrival of Ned Buckley, a younger, fitter, more dedicated Australian who threatens to take everything Rippa has worked so hard to almost care about.
Young Pilgrim is the second book in P.J. Laverty's RIPPA! series; a comedy about football, freedom, and a young man who would rather be anywhere else, doing almost anything else, and is somehow brilliant at the one thing he can't escape.
Aussie Tales, Humour, Literary, Comedy, Sport, Sports Fiction
About The Author
P.J. Laverty is a Scottish-Australian writer specialising in historical football fiction (with a comedic spin), with a PhD in Creative Writing from Curtin University.
Under the moniker Paul J Laverty, he is the host of 94.9 Main FM literary book show, The Quiet Carriage, which airs nationally on the Community Radio Network. He has written two novellas, Man Overbored and Cider Country (RoadHouse Media). He also wrote the first biography on Grammy award winners Arcade Fire and another on Beck.
His first football novel, The Gaffer, and the first in the RIPPA! series were published by Popcorn Press in 2022 and 2024 respectively.
He is a football tragic who will never tire of telling anyone within earshot all about his adventures in Germany during World Cup 2006. P.J. lives in Castlemaine, Victoria, with his wife and two children.
