Quite Unsuitable for Females

From October 2024 to February 2025, I was invited to lead a series of Arts Council-funded community workshops to explore the social issues around women’s football and the ban in 1921. The workshops were devised to support the creation of a play about a woman directly affected by ban. In the workshops we explored political text in art, the male gaze and the tension between private domesticity and the public theatre of football.

Participants created individual patches using discarded domestic textiles, which I stitched together into a triptych of pennants reminiscent of suffragette banners with echoes of football iconography. The pennants were put on show during the performance of the play in Lewes, and finally, will be installed at Lewes FC clubhouse.

The play was written and directed by Red Gray, director of Stitched Up Theatre and singer songwriter Bella Spinks. The workshops were hosted by Lewes FC.