Abstract

In the UK girls and women who play football experience both empowerment and constraint through participation. Despite the popularity of the sport there is limited research available on girls’ and women’s identity development and family relationships in connection to football. Taken from the author’s current PhD research this study aims to unearth the meaning of the football self and to explore how this influences the girls’ and women’s understanding and experiences of girlhood, gender and family life. Identity work has been a valuable tool to assist in the theoretical underpinning for this study which is complemented by ethnography. A useful finding is that the football self is experienced at different strengths for different girls and women at different times in their lives. Furthermore, the football self is often noticed encouraged and identified above all else by family members and friends. Traditional classifications of gender identity such as tomboy or girly girl were not functional or identifiable to the participants in this study. Girls and women were teased for playing football; being called Doll’s Head, lesbian and man. However, the football self was not affected by this negativity; with their football identity creating complex but complementary links with their gender identity.