Women’s Football Club Review – 11-player line-up pays homage to Sheffield’s pioneering players | stage

TInterest in women’s football continues to grow off the field in this play by Stefano Masini, adapted by Tim Firth for Sheffield Theatres. Like Amanda Whittington’s The Invincibles and Sabrina Mahfouz and Holly McNish’s Offside, Women’s Football Club tells the incredible story of the game’s development during the First World War. While the men fought away, the women took their places in the factory and on the football field – before being rudely kicked out of both after peace returned.

Set on the local turf, this imaginative reimagining of that history follows female munitions workers playing football in Sheffield. The storytelling in Elizabeth Newman’s production is characterized by the fast and frenetic pace of the match, as it quickly passes back and forth between the dynamic group of 11. It matches the action direction of Scott Graham, who strings together sequences of exaggerated stabs, kicks and headers, evoking the game without trying to realistically replicate it on stage. It all leads to relentless forward momentum, as the team moves quickly from lunchtime kick-offs to their first match to play in front of tens of thousands in London.

But there are also some floundering kicks and surprising interventions in the storytelling. The text tends to veer quickly from one idea or exchange to another, making the narrative feel scattered. Likewise, the driving energy of Newman’s directions sometimes sacrifices clarity. With so many characters to juggle, each player turns on one specific trait: the socialist character, the soft-spoken character, and the character who is strangely obsessed with Joan of Arc. While these characteristics allow for moments of comedy, they also risk undermining women’s struggle to be seen as multidimensional individuals.

At some point, a character uses the beautiful game as an analogy for oppression: you get your spot on the playing field and you’re stuck there. Women’s Football is most exciting when it challenges this notion, drawing a line from the spirit and defiance of these women more than a century ago to the triumphs of their Lioness successors today.