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Late equaliser
ALISTAIR FINDLAY welcomes a fine collection of football poems that celebrate a generational shift in both the sport and the culture
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We Are Scottish Football
Julie McNeill, Luath, £7.99
THE publication of Julie McNeill’s new collection was perfectly timed to coincide with the Euros and future Women’s World Cup qualifiers. Its poetic focus may be on Scotland but its reach is global because football is global, as it has been since at least the 1950s as a male domain.
In capitalist terms women’s football is being sponsored because it has brought to the market a new audience of young girls and women with a growing fan base — mums, aunts, grannies, sisters, dads, uncles, boy and girl friends. It has already created a new infrastructure of players, coaches, trainers, physios, managers, scouts, pitches, referees and football strips being sold with the names of female football stars.
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