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Play On: From Adversity to Advantage Through 140 Years of Women's Soccer
Women's Rights Meet Sports History
Women's rights meet sports history in this compelling journey through 140 years of women's soccer. For decades, the women's game has been a powerful vehicle for sparking change, yet dedicated fans still know little about the pioneers who kept playing despite bans and even violence. Play On uses soccer fouls as a framework to share stories of dangerous play, obstruction and delay of game, along with examples of women 'playing on' to remarkable effect, transforming not just the game but the culture around it.
Learn why players on one of the first English women's teams used fake names to protect their identities, when the German Women's National Team held a bake sale to travel to an international tournament, what challenges female soccer fans in Iran face and how the Afghan women's team is continuing to fight for FIFA recognition in exile. Explore new approaches to transforming team culture and pre-empting athlete abuse, how the media landscape is shifting around women's sports (finally!) and the medical research that's changing the game.
Women's rights meet sports history in this compelling journey through 140 years of women's soccer. For decades, the women's game has been a powerful vehicle for sparking change, yet dedicated fans still know little about the pioneers who kept playing despite bans and even violence. Play On uses soccer fouls as a framework to share stories of dangerous play, obstruction and delay of game, along with examples of women 'playing on' to remarkable effect, transforming not just the game but the culture around it.
Learn why players on one of the first English women's teams used fake names to protect their identities, when the German Women's National Team held a bake sale to travel to an international tournament, what challenges female soccer fans in Iran face and how the Afghan women's team is continuing to fight for FIFA recognition in exile. Explore new approaches to transforming team culture and pre-empting athlete abuse, how the media landscape is shifting around women's sports (finally!) and the medical research that's changing the game.
241 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 9, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 25, 2026
Play On by Heidi Smith
Quick Pitch
"Throughout history, women's football has always been hand in hand with women's rights." - Andrea Rodebaugh. If you are interested in the history of the journey of the intersection of soccer and feminism, this book is for you!
The Good
- This book is formatted into chapters themed around different soccer fouls, with each chapter containing seven sections (a personal story from the author's lived experience, three stories of "fouls" against women in soccer history, and three stories of "playing on" or advancing the sport in the face of adversity. I love a clear structure, and this is the sort of book that can be digested over however many sittings you want because each story stands on it's own.
- I loved how the author's humor came through during the autobiographical stories. These stories provided the book with balance, showing the challenges of women in sport from the lens of the author's playing/coaching level at an amateur level, all the way to the challenges of some of the greatest footballers to play in the modern game (Bonmati, Mia Hamm, Carli Lloyd), to everyone in-between. Spoilers: the common thread is opposition from systemic misogyny, and women fight on, persevere, and ultimately overcome. :)
- Due to the format, the book covers 63 stories or so. Those stories are able to paint a picture of life as a woman soccer player or fan across the world over the last 150 years. This is a great basis to start off a deeper dive of some of the incredibly fascinating topics covered in this book. A few of the topics that I found most enlightening (in no particular order): Dick's, Kerr Ladies history, FA's ban of women playing football in England from 1921 to 1970, USWNT, the 1971 "Forgotten" Women's World Cup, the attribution game between men and women, to name a few).
- Hope. The book make sure to balance the stories of adversity with stories of triumph and progress. Learning about the amount of growth of NWSL in the US and WSL in England over just the last 6 years or so was especially encouraging. As much as you feel and mourn the lost of all the lost opportunities from the last 150 years of women's soccer, you also feel the excitement of this currently unfolding chapter and the possibilities ahead.
The Bad
- I genuinely don't have much of a criticism to raise here, but I never leave this section blank. By covering so many topics, you can definitely be left wanting for more detail or depth into the individual stories. It is clear the book easily could have been 300 pages with another 30 stories, or could have had half the stories and more depth for each. I found the balance a great starting point for anyone wanting to cover a large amount of history and content in a shorter read.
Rating
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 5 out of 5 stars
This was an enjoying and enriching read, which is pretty much the dream. I learned a lot and filled out some existing knowledge with additional context and perspectives. A must read for any fan of football history.
Quick Pitch
"Throughout history, women's football has always been hand in hand with women's rights." - Andrea Rodebaugh. If you are interested in the history of the journey of the intersection of soccer and feminism, this book is for you!
The Good
- This book is formatted into chapters themed around different soccer fouls, with each chapter containing seven sections (a personal story from the author's lived experience, three stories of "fouls" against women in soccer history, and three stories of "playing on" or advancing the sport in the face of adversity. I love a clear structure, and this is the sort of book that can be digested over however many sittings you want because each story stands on it's own.
- I loved how the author's humor came through during the autobiographical stories. These stories provided the book with balance, showing the challenges of women in sport from the lens of the author's playing/coaching level at an amateur level, all the way to the challenges of some of the greatest footballers to play in the modern game (Bonmati, Mia Hamm, Carli Lloyd), to everyone in-between. Spoilers: the common thread is opposition from systemic misogyny, and women fight on, persevere, and ultimately overcome. :)
- Due to the format, the book covers 63 stories or so. Those stories are able to paint a picture of life as a woman soccer player or fan across the world over the last 150 years. This is a great basis to start off a deeper dive of some of the incredibly fascinating topics covered in this book. A few of the topics that I found most enlightening (in no particular order): Dick's, Kerr Ladies history, FA's ban of women playing football in England from 1921 to 1970, USWNT, the 1971 "Forgotten" Women's World Cup, the attribution game between men and women, to name a few).
- Hope. The book make sure to balance the stories of adversity with stories of triumph and progress. Learning about the amount of growth of NWSL in the US and WSL in England over just the last 6 years or so was especially encouraging. As much as you feel and mourn the lost of all the lost opportunities from the last 150 years of women's soccer, you also feel the excitement of this currently unfolding chapter and the possibilities ahead.
The Bad
- I genuinely don't have much of a criticism to raise here, but I never leave this section blank. By covering so many topics, you can definitely be left wanting for more detail or depth into the individual stories. It is clear the book easily could have been 300 pages with another 30 stories, or could have had half the stories and more depth for each. I found the balance a great starting point for anyone wanting to cover a large amount of history and content in a shorter read.
Rating
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – 5 out of 5 stars
This was an enjoying and enriching read, which is pretty much the dream. I learned a lot and filled out some existing knowledge with additional context and perspectives. A must read for any fan of football history.
November 26, 2025
4.5 stars
This book is about the ups and downs, and the setbacks and victories that shaped women's football (or soccer, if you prefer).
And you don't even need me to tell you that because this is about women's football, the biggest impediment is sexism.
Reading this, you'll realize the problems in women's football never really changed in any way, they just took on different forms. In the 1920s, female football players in the UK were banned from earning money from playing football. Today, the South African team isn't receiving the FIFA money that is meant to be allocated to them.
Conditions have certainly improved compared to what it was before, but we have a loooong way to go. The sexism is so pervasive and deeply-rooted. Reading this book is honestly so angering sometimes. You'll hear of reporters getting sexually harassed on camera while reporting on world cups, the women's team having to eat whatever the leftovers are from the mens team, the withholding of well-deserved funding...among so many other things.
And this isn't even accounting for things that are not solely about football: societal pressure, bias in medical research, expectations on women, and even opposition from other women.
That said, if you already follow women's football, a lot of this will be familiar to you. As someone who closely follows both mens and women's football, I was already aware of a lot of the things mentioned in this book. If you keep up with women's football, surely you already know what happened with the Spanish women's team and Jorge Vilda? Although maybe you'd be less familiar with the issues with the Argentinian national team from 2015-16. I was way more interested when the author talked about events from the more distant past because I wasn't aware of them at all. Like, I didn't even know there was a point in time in the 1920s when women's football was more popular than men's in the UK!
In an effort to make this book accessible to everyone, all players, when introduced, are given a paragraph of description of who they are and what tournaments they won. I don't really need to know what Hope Solo won or who Jenni Hermoso is, so I just ended up skipping those paragraphs. I also didn't think it was necessary to mention every single award/tournament they won.
I think this is a good primer on the problems facing women's football. Would absolutely recommend to anyone wanting to know more and understand the issues, especially if you haven't been keeping up very closely with women's football.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is about the ups and downs, and the setbacks and victories that shaped women's football (or soccer, if you prefer).
And you don't even need me to tell you that because this is about women's football, the biggest impediment is sexism.
Reading this, you'll realize the problems in women's football never really changed in any way, they just took on different forms. In the 1920s, female football players in the UK were banned from earning money from playing football. Today, the South African team isn't receiving the FIFA money that is meant to be allocated to them.
Conditions have certainly improved compared to what it was before, but we have a loooong way to go. The sexism is so pervasive and deeply-rooted. Reading this book is honestly so angering sometimes. You'll hear of reporters getting sexually harassed on camera while reporting on world cups, the women's team having to eat whatever the leftovers are from the mens team, the withholding of well-deserved funding...among so many other things.
And this isn't even accounting for things that are not solely about football: societal pressure, bias in medical research, expectations on women, and even opposition from other women.
That said, if you already follow women's football, a lot of this will be familiar to you. As someone who closely follows both mens and women's football, I was already aware of a lot of the things mentioned in this book. If you keep up with women's football, surely you already know what happened with the Spanish women's team and Jorge Vilda? Although maybe you'd be less familiar with the issues with the Argentinian national team from 2015-16. I was way more interested when the author talked about events from the more distant past because I wasn't aware of them at all. Like, I didn't even know there was a point in time in the 1920s when women's football was more popular than men's in the UK!
In an effort to make this book accessible to everyone, all players, when introduced, are given a paragraph of description of who they are and what tournaments they won. I don't really need to know what Hope Solo won or who Jenni Hermoso is, so I just ended up skipping those paragraphs. I also didn't think it was necessary to mention every single award/tournament they won.
I think this is a good primer on the problems facing women's football. Would absolutely recommend to anyone wanting to know more and understand the issues, especially if you haven't been keeping up very closely with women's football.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
January 13, 2026
I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I found the book to be a really Insightful and informative read about the past and present state of the women’s game (football/soccer) worldwide. Being a big football fan, I know a lot about the women’s in England and the UK, a little about Australia and America but there was a lot I wasn’t aware of relating to South America, Africa and Canada. A lot of what came out wasn’t particularly surprising, sadly, with rife sexism, misogyny, discrimination, societal and cultural perceptions and expectations, corruption, and still the lack of access, equity, encouragement and opportunities. Though this is slowly beginning to improve, at least in England, but there’s still so much to do in terms of progression and empowerment and of course in comparison to the men’s game.
I’d recommend this read and thanks
again to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in advance of publication.
I found the book to be a really Insightful and informative read about the past and present state of the women’s game (football/soccer) worldwide. Being a big football fan, I know a lot about the women’s in England and the UK, a little about Australia and America but there was a lot I wasn’t aware of relating to South America, Africa and Canada. A lot of what came out wasn’t particularly surprising, sadly, with rife sexism, misogyny, discrimination, societal and cultural perceptions and expectations, corruption, and still the lack of access, equity, encouragement and opportunities. Though this is slowly beginning to improve, at least in England, but there’s still so much to do in terms of progression and empowerment and of course in comparison to the men’s game.
I’d recommend this read and thanks
again to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this in advance of publication.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews