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The State of Play: Women in British Sport History

It is difficult to argue that sport history remains on the periphery of historical research. Rather, it might now be identified as occupying a positive niche position within the broader discipline of ‘history’ itself. In Britain this is largely thanks to the ongoing quality and breadth of publications, including the continued production of journals like this one, which has ensured the discipline’s credibility. Yet, in spite of this achievement, it is not unreasonable to assert that dedicated study of women in sport history remains a peculiarly neglected area of academic research in Britain. While it seems that the rise in status of sport history has been concomitant with a process which has seen sport attain incredible prominence within British culture, particularly since the 1990s, this best evidenced by a burgeoning media presence domestically and globally, the contemporary drive to encourage more girls and women into sport and physical activity, coupled with the increasing visibility of women performing at elite level across a range of sports, has not apparently stimulated much enquiry into the historical experiences underpinning these respective developments. Furthermore, in spite of Jeff Hill’s observation that Andrew Davies’s ground-breaking Leisure, Gender and Poverty (1992) ‘points up one of the most overlooked aspects of British sport: the place in it of women’, the issue still remains the concern of very few. For example, a database search of this journal since 1993 quickly reveals a dearth of articles dedicated to the subject of women or gender