This book investigates the international status of women's football and particularly reviews its controversial image which was also taken up in a related book entitled "A Game for Rough Girls". The study develops the thesis of women's involvement as fundamental to the history of association ...

This paper focuses on the role of a local sports club in shaping the lives of British African-Caribbean males in one British city over a 40-year period. The paper describes how the 'Meadebrook Cavaliers' has transitioned from its origins as an East Midlands parks-based football team in 1970 to a...

The drive to develop women's football in France, a game 100 years old albeit one long-stigmatised, was thrust into high gear in 2011. Since then, a confluence of events and cultural changes, from on-field results and officials' investment of greater resources to winning the 2019 World Cup host bid, ...

This special edition is an output from the academic conference dedicated to the international history of women's football held at the National Football Museum on 8 and 9 March 2018 to mark International Women's Day. Topics addressed by the six papers in this issue include: how national team players ...

Mary Russell Vick OBE (1922-2012) first came to fame as a prolific goalscorer for the England women's hockey team after selection in 1947, and later an indomitable sports leader. Methodologically, this article incorporates oral history sources from her daughters Christabel, Susan and Rosemary,...

This article centres on a reunion held at the National Football Museum in 2018 of women football players active before 1993, particularly the England team for the unofficial Women's World Cup in 1971. After outlining the organisation of the tournament, the experience of the three youngest England...

This chapter provides a look at the distinctive values held by the north of England, UK, as expressed through the lives of those who became famous in the north as sportsmen. After reviewing the lives of early northern sporting heroes, clustered around the more traditional sports such as pugilism or ...

This paper focuses on ten travelogues written by football fans during four FIFA World Cup tournaments (1994-2006), and explores how attendance at the World Cup Finals is represented in popular literary form. Outlining the history of travel writing and the lack of attention given to it by...

We analyse key circumstances and events in the early life and development of the Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi. We critically considers the influences and choices which helped shape his stellar career, using insights from the work of French sociologist Pierre-Michel Menger about the...

This paper introduces women's football development in Namibia from 1998 to 2011 as a case study to argue that presumed synergies of sport and development could overshadow the long-term effects of under-funding, discrimination and bureaucratic inertia. There are three key themes arising from this...