Forward Play!

Exhibition skills

August 4, 2023

Forward Play! is a new initiative from Leeds based designer and art director Eve Warren that champions creativity through football.

The first project involves 33 illustrators, a massive poster-zine, a set of stickers and an exhibition at Colours May Vary in Leeds’ Corn Exchange, celebrating trailblazers of women’s football.

17.4m people watched the Lionesses’ win the Euros on 31/7/22, and the WSL’s average attendances have grown by 729% since 2019. The 2023 World Cup has already broken broadcast viewing records in the USA, more than 6m tuning into each of the USWNT’s first two matches.

But while women’s football is growing, teenage girls in the UK are still encountering limits on their opportunities to play, finding it hard to follow the paths of the Lionesses who inspire them.

“Teenage girls still have limited opportunities in football, especially those who are passionate about football but disengaged in school, or who are from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage,” says Eve, who will be giving all profits from Forward Play! to Football Beyond Borders, supporting the charities work to inspire a new generation.

The first Forward Play! project aims to do that through art, storytelling and celebration of relatively well-known figures like Lucy Bronze, Brandi Chastain or Ellen White – the former Leeds striker and England’s record goalscorer – as well as players whose importance can be discovered: Lilly Parr, who defied the FA’s ban on women’s football, Beverly Ranger, the Jamaican striker who won German TV’s goal of the month in 1975, and Carol Thomas, who captained England to the UEFA Women’s Championship final in 1984.

(On this page: Birgit Prinz by Zöe Beckley, Beverly Ranger by Sarah Madden, Sue Lopez by Joel Burden, Lucy Bronze by Sam Peet, Brandi Chastain by Mille Chesters and Ellen White by Hattie Clark)