Provincial Newspapers, Sports Reporting and the Origins, Rise and Fall of Women’s Football

The success of women’s football over the last few years, nationally and internationally, has encouraged fresh study and appreciation. Research using provincial newspapers has yielded particular insight. Reference is made to the deployment of this source type in informing the ‘origins of [men’s] football’ debate. Through the late 1900s and into the next century, major urban centres, working-class football and the local press were expanding hand in hand. This article discusses the emergence of women’s football in Lincolnshire, with a focus on the instrumental cultural role of provincial news media in recording, promoting and critiquing. The investigation was undertaken to support the production of a play and exhibition in 2018, celebrating First World War ‘munitionette’ teams. The exhibition was remounted for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. Press language is complex, contradictory and changeable, from early late-nineteenth century reports up to those surrounding the Football Association’s controversial 1921 ban

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