Women in Boots: Football and Feminism in the 1970s by Marion Stell and Heather Reid provides great insight into the history of women's football in Australia and New Zealand. The authors use oral history and family-scrapbook collections to share the personal stories of the women selected to play in the first recognized international series between Australia and New Zealand in the late 1970s. The book's aim is “[t]o investigate the link between football and feminism” (x) during a period now recognized as the decade in which women's football began to gain a foothold in the sporting culture of nations worldwide.Both authors bring a lot to the table. Dr. Marion Stell is a renowned historian and academic and is well recognized for her work in the history of women's sport. Heather Reid, AM, is a pioneer of the women's game in Australia, having worked for the development of women's football from her initial involvement with the Australian Women's Soccer Association (AWSA) in 1979. However, it is the combination of both authors’ skills and experiences that brings a fresh approach to the narrative. Both authors began their football careers together in Canberra in 1979 and have experienced firsthand many of the challenges faced by the players represented in the book.The main strength of the book lies in the use of oral history interviewing. The interviews bring the past alive by allowing those who experienced it a voice and an opportunity to share their stories. The added contribution of memorabilia and press clippings found in family scrapbooks provides the reader with a snapshot of the society in the 1970s with personal anecdotes and “a wealth of newspaper coverage” (75).I especially enjoyed reading the opening chapter, “Boots.” The chapter introduces each of the players in a way that invites the reader to be part of the women's journey on a personal level so that you want to know how they got on. From the very beginning, we learn about how these women got involved in the game and how much it means to them. This is expressed by using the analogy of the player's first pair of football boots and how, on reflection, they represent both the struggles and triumphs experienced by the women. Football boots for women were largely unavailable during this period, and most had to make do with “hand-me-downs” or boots that were ill-fitting or of low quality. The symbol of the players’ efforts in keeping the “boots” clean, polishing them, and sometimes “sleeping with them” represents how important the game was to them and how determined they were to keep playing.The authors use a chronological order of events as the background into which the stories are woven. The chapter “Liberation” looks at some of the changes in society during the 1970s, including the momentum of the feminist movement. The chapter explains that, during this time, the women footballers were simply trying to play the game they loved, and most were not aware of being part of a wider social movement. Instead, they were fighting against the male-dominated sporting culture by growing the women's game and “[b]y their actions we can call them what British sports historian Jean Williams has named ‘practical feminists’” (35).The book goes on to explore many of the same themes faced by women in sport worldwide, including the eternal struggle to raise the necessary funds needed for them to play and issues faced by players labeled as lesbian, a topic that receives its own chapter. The individual journey of the women footballers culminates with the selection of the teams to play in the first international series between the Matildas and Ferns in 1979/80. In terms of the analogy used throughout, it was now “time to polish those boots.”The book finishes with the chapter “Respect,” in which the playing careers of the women footballers the readers have been following from Chapter 1 come to an end—or as the authors symbolically state, “[T]he boots have been packed away” (155). Some forty years later, the women reflect on what their individual journeys have meant to them and how it has impacted their lives.Women in Boots is a great read and will be enjoyed by those interested in the history of women's football or in women's sport in general. The book provides a much-needed addition to the scarcity of literature on the history of women's football and showcases the value of oral testimony. Most of all, it provides the pioneers of the women's game with an opportunity for their stories to be heard and reveals what their experiences added to the history of sport in Australia and New Zealand.
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