Abstract

Since the 1990s, scholarly work surrounding women’s football has focused on sexualities (Caudwell, 1999), gender identity development (Jeanes, 2006; 2011), international perspectives (Ben-Porat, 2011) and sexualisation through the media (Jones and Greer, 2011). Up until now the relationships between footballer and family have yet to be explored and analysed. Furthermore, research on youth studies has overlooked the importance of family relationships to young people over the past two decades (Wyn, Lantz & Harris, 2011). This paper will focus on one element from the Researcher’s current PhD thesis, namely the relationship between parents and football playing daughters. A sport feminist lens was used to explore the spoken conversations shared with players and parents respectively during a season-long ethnographic study. Early findings indicate that the match-day car journey is an important transitional space needed to create, recreate and negotiate family relationships in connection to football.