The Rise and Fall of ‘The Girl Footballer’ in New Zealand during 1921.

Organised football, in all its variant forms, has been perceived almost exclusively as a male domain until the late 1960s/early 1970s. The story told in this article is set in 1921 when groups of women in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch formally decided to play soccer, rugby union and rugby league. Michel Foucault's genealogical framework is employed to analyse media texts from five leading New Zealand newspapers from 1 June to 30 October 1921, as well as football texts from the minute books of the Auckland Football Association (AFA), 1920–1922. While nobody knows what influenced several hundred women to form clubs, train and play these games during this particular historical moment, a discursive analysis reveals that ‘The Girl Footballer’ emerged as a particular historical construct. The tactical deployment of key discourses positioned her as irresponsible, selfish and unfeminine and, after a blaze of publicity, she vanished without a trace. As an unrevealed period in the history of women's sport in New Zealand, this genealogical examination offers a fascinating insight into the feelings, attitudes and actions towards women who wished to participate in team sports. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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