Women's and girls' involvement in football continues to be a cause for celebration and concern. This book explores this double-edged status by focusing on administration, coaching and organising of the game, alongside particular issues surrounding ethnicity and sexuality.

This book was published as a special issue of the Soccer and Soc

Jayne Caudwell is Senior Lecturer in Sport Studies at the University of Brighton, UK. Her publications include Sport, Sexualities and Queer/Theory (also published by Routledge); and, as co-editor, Women, Football and Europe; Relocating the Leisure Society: Media, Consumption and Spaces, and Sport, Active Leisure and Youth Cultures.

1. Reviewing UK football cultures: continuing with gender analyses Jayne Caudwell 2. Gender, feminism and football studies Jayne Caudwell 3. 'I don't think I can catch it': women, confidence and responsibility in football coach education Beth Fielding-Lloyd and Lindsey Meân 4. Tokenism, ties and talking too quietly: women's experiences in non-playing football roles Jo Welford 5. 'Who wants to make aloo gobi when you can bend it like Beckham?' British Asian females and their racialised experiences of gender and identity in women's football Aarti Ratna 6. 'I'm into high heels and make up but I still love football': exploring gender identity and football participation with preadolescent girls Ruth Jeanes 7. 'It seems really inclusive in some ways, but ... inclusive just for people who identify as lesbian': discourses of gender and sexuality in a lesbian-identified football club Scarlett Drury 8. British football: where are the Muslim female footballers? Exploring the connections between gender, ethnicity and Islam Aisha Ahmad 9. Girls with learning disabilities and 'football on the brain' Annette Stride and Hayley F. Fitzgerald