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Women's Football in a Global, Professional Erais an important addition to discussions on sport as work for women, and an essential reference point for students, researchers and sports professionals interested in the debates around the professionalisation of women's football internationally.

The Professionalisation of Women's Sportdraws upon the expertise of a range of scholars from the fields of sport sociology, sport history, sport economics to critically discuss the complex and often fragmented histories of women's involvement in professional sport.

It has long been claimed that sport plays an important role in the formulation of national identity. Key to understanding this relationship is Michael Billig's concept of banal nationalism, which is used in this article to examine national symbols that act as daily reminders of the nation. Specifically, the article discusses the relationship between Englishness and sport by drawing upon data from interviews with representative English sportswomen in association football, cricket, netball, and rugby union. The article demonstrates the important role that (men's) sport plays in developing a sense of national identity in England and, in particular, one that is distinct from Britishness. Furthermore, the significance of national symbols is evidenced as banal reminders of national identity for England's sportswomen.

In May 2018, the men's European Tour invited five female professional golfers to compete in its GolfSixes event in England, against 27 professional male players. This was significant, particularly given the female struggle for equality of access, participation, employment and decision making in golf settings. This research investigates the print media representation of these five female professional golfers competing in this male domain. Using the Nexis database, data were collected from print newspapers in the United Kingdom and Ireland over six days before, during and after the event. Following thematic analysis, findings highlight a double-edged sword with regard to media coverage of female athletes competing against men: women received greater media coverage when in the male sport spotlight, but the coverage was framed by gendered discourses. The results document a slow shift towards more equal and equitable print media coverage of female athletes, whilst drawing attention to the problematic ways in which sportswomen are represented.

It has been claimed that the one place Englishness exists is on the sports field, and usually it is men's sport that appears central to creating a sense of English national identity. However, in light of England's sporting success across multiple women's sports (namely cricket, netball, association football and rugby union), there warrants a need to begin to question the place of these female athletes in discussions of the nation. Drawing on extensive interview data with women who have represented England at sport, this paper seeks to 'give a voice' to these women whose experiences have often been ignored by both the popular press and academics alike. This research discusses the way in which English women represent their nation, both on the field of play and more broadly, and sheds light on the complexity of the intersections of gender and national identity. Attention is also paid to the role of women as warriors in the conventional sense. It is argued that, through playing international, representative sport, the women actively embody the nation, with national identity often overriding gendered identity in these instances. In this sense, they become proxy warriors for the nation.

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between sport and identity formation by examining testimonies of 24 British women who attended the Solheim Cup golf tournament in 2019 to support a transnational team made up of professional European women players. Relatively little is known about the effects of transnational sports teams on identity formation, not least because such teams are themselves rare. The Solheim Cup, contested by teams of female professional golfers representing the United States and Europe, is one such example. The data set consists of interviews with women who attended the competition that took place in a period of political uncertainty between the UK electorate voting to leave the European Union and Brexit actually taking place. The paper analyses the women's views in relation to national identity, European identity and cosmopolitanism. Although it emerges that most of the women felt more European in the context of a competition involving a team representing Europe and were opposed to the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, they could also be described as cosmopolitan as a result of their educational level, social class and experience of living in or regularly visiting foreign countries.

In 2019, Scotland played host to the Solheim Cup, a competition contested by leading women professional golfers representing Europe and the United States. The event was given further political significance by the fact that it took place in the same year as the United Kingdom left the European Union against the wishes of the majority of Scots who had voted in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. This paper examines the significance of the 2019 Solheim Cup with specific reference to the quasi-mythical status of golf in Scotland and the use of sports events by the Scottish Government and the organisation responsible for Scotland's tourism strategy, VisitScotland, to enhance the country's image and attract visitors, particularly from overseas. Initially, discussion focuses on the historical roots of golf in Scotland, and its quasi-mythical claim to be the 'Home of Golf', a key motif in the nation's sports tourism strategy. Attention then turns to a critical examination of contemporary sport tourism policy in Scotland, focusing upon the nation's use of international sporting events as part of this broader strategy. To this end, we scrutinise the discursive strategies used by Scottish politicians and policymakers in relation to the 2019 Solheim Cup, exploring the extent to which the event effectively tackled the explicit goals of: a) promoting Scottish values; b) demonstrating the nation's capabilities for hosting sporting events; c) cementing Scotland's reputation as the home of golf; and, d) tackling socio-economic and gendered inequalities with regards to golf participation in Scotland.

Given the specific question in this DCMS 'Call for Evidence' on 'What needs to happen for major events to successfully bring people from all four nations of the UK together?', it is clear that the Department is explicitly acknowledging the political and symbolic importance of sport and sporting events - a position that we support as academics within the field of the sociology and politics of sport. To this end, we argue that such refutation of the 'sport and politics do not mix' fallacy is important to shed light on the political and ideological impact of sporting events, drawing upon our empirical evidence from past sporting events. In considering whether the hosting of major events can successfully bring people from all four nations of the UK together, policymakers require a critical appreciation of the doubleedged symbolism of international sporting events in relation to national identity in the UK. In this vein, we draw upon an extensive body of research that has investigated this element of national identity politics at the following sporting events: a) London 2012 Olympic Games; b) Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games; c) Gleneagles 2019 Solheim Cup; and, d) Portrush 2020 Open Championship. In light of the above comments regarding the double-edged symbolism of international sporting events in relation to national identity in the UK, we set out below the ways in which past sporting events have offered potential for unifying symbolism which responds in the affirmative (in a caveated manner) to the Call for Evidence proposition of using '.major events to successfully bring people from all four nations of the UK together'. Equally, we also contend that past sporting events simultaneously offered potential for the growth of distinctive national identities - and to a lesser degree, political nationalism - which suggests that the proposition of using '.major events to successfully bring people from all four nations of the UK together' can potentially be counter-productive. Our evidence argues that sport can act as an additional marker of difference between the 'home nations', underpinning a sense of distinctiveness within British identity politics. Notwithstanding these comments, it is also important for politicians and policy-makers to avoid conflation between sporting nationalism and political nationalism in relation to sporting events, given the lack of evidence of such correlation. Therefore, the question of whether major events can successfully bring people from all four nations of the UK together needs to be considered in a measured and realistic degree - to this end, we specifically draw upon extensive evidence from the Scottish context. In order for major sporting events to be successfully used to bring people from all four nations of the UK together, policymakers need to be wary of the dangers of the conflation between Britishness and Englishness at international sporting events which can become evident at international sporting events. Such conflation often leads to the alienation of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish population. Furthermore, there are risks entailed with regards to the recent increase in symbolism of the United Kingdom in political communication, such as the recent promotion of the Union Flag in public communication and government buildings, if this is replicated at international sporting events. This would potentially undermine the potential to use such events to bring people from all four nations of the UK together. Finally, we would like to stress that a sensitive and respectful approach to the use of sporting events to bring people from all four nations of the UK together, mindful of the arguments presented above, does indeed possess potential benefits which make the pursuit of sporting events worthwhile. Thus, we reiterate evidence of the potential for harnessing intangible 'legacies' of sporting events, such as image promotion, diplomatic goodwill, reconciliation, and 'feel-good factor', for achieving broader cultural, social and economic goals. However, to achieve these goals, acknowledging such negative images of 'Britishness' is crucial.

The world of inter-national sport, defined as sport that involves athletes competing for 'their' country against athletes from another country (Gleaves and Llewellyn, 2014), is often imbued with notions of national identity and war, although some sports lend themselves more obviously than others to these concepts. For Liston and Kitching (2019, p. 6) however, the sport of golf is unaccustomed to the displays of nationalism that are more commonplace in more combative team sports. This is due to the lack of both direct competition formats and nation versus nation contests in golf, as well as the absence of the physical confrontation that characterises other sports. Golf is generally devoid of flags and nationalistic tendencies and is thus often considered relatively insignificant in inculcating national sentiments, with Steen (2015, p. 349) noting that golf is 'lacking the passions, physical confrontation and tribal loyalties that underpin mass appeal'. Harris et al (2017) subsequently highlighted how, perhaps unsurprisingly, little research has considered the place of the nation in relation to golf, with professional golfers playing on global tours defined as 'borderless athletes' who transcend national, racial and ethnic borders, de facto sports citizens of the world (Chiba, Ebihara and Morino, 2001). Despite this, Bairner (2003) notes that the sport does have links to dentity politics, and there have been instances where professional golfers have taken on cultural significance and become viewed as embodiments of the nation (Kitching and Bowes, 2020; Liston and Kitching, 2019). This paper aims to investigate the print media's role in connecting golf, this case, women's, to national identity. More specifically, the paper examines the relationship between golf and national identity, using the 2019 Solheim Cup as a case study and drawing upon the notion of athletes as proxy warriors for their nation.

It has become something of a truism, that within various athletic subcultures pain and injury are regularly normalised as 'part of the game'. One clear consequence which flows from this empirical reality is that athletes often need medical care in various forms. Recent developments in the gendered structuring of sport means that sportswomen are increasingly centred within this process. Yet, there is a broad consensus from sportswomen and academics alike that access to medical support and the availability of associated resources in women's sport is inadequate. Based on interviews with 17 women located in the United Kingdom, we cast new light on how medical support and care appears to be structured across various women's amateur sports. Two key findings are highlighted, firstly, that the majority of medical support was via first aid kits, which is problematic in their inconsistent restocking, and the availability of someone trained to use them. And, secondly, that there was a DIY approach to medical care which we explore via a discussion of athlete-to-athlete 'team-doctoring' – wherein sportswomen provided medical advice, care and treatments to each other. Our analysis of these two findings shows how medical care might be inconsistent, compromised and otherwise poor in quality, especially when viewed through the lens of critical scholarship about the sociology of sports medicine. This has specific consequences for the sports women we spoke with, and wider implications for our understanding of amateur sportspeople generally.

This edited collection brings together a collaboration of sport and health scholars and practitioners to evaluate current topics in sport and health communication with the aim to provide a holistic resource for scholars interested working at the intersection of these fields.