This dissertation explores the representation of female football protagonists in fictional works from two key periods: 1921 to 1923 and 2019 to 2022. The fictional texts are Meg FosterFootballer (1921), Captain Meg! (1922), Football Island (1922), Bess of Blacktown (1922) by Don Gray, Nell O’ Newcastle (1922) by Steve Nelson, Ray of the Rovers (1922) by C. Malcolm Hincks, The Football Factory (1923) by Don Gray, Lily and the Rockets (2019) by Rebecca Stevens, Kicking off: Dick, Kerr Girls (2020) by Eve Ainsworth, Our Beautiful Game (2021) by Lou Kuenzler, Violet’s War (2021) by Rosemary J. Kind, Vi for Victory (2021) by Rosemary J. Kind, All Together Now: Dick, Kerr Girls (2022) by Eve Ainsworth, and The Match: An Unsuitable Game (2022) by Diana Townsend. The dissertation examines the major factors influencing the representation of the female football protagonist, including the historical and modern context of women’s football in Britain, First World War Britain, and the developments of the feminist movement. The dissertation focuses on the impact of the 1921 FA ban on the production of fiction featuring the women’s game. To bridge the two literary timeframes, and to explore works within the post-FA ban era, the research also considers the two films Gregory’s Girl (1981) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002). While the research adopts an interdisciplinary approach where literary studies, history, queer studies, and film studies are used to inform the reading and analysis of the materials, the analysis heavily draws on theoretical approaches from sports feminism (sociology), exploring how issues such as gender stereotyping, visibility, and access to opportunity are negotiated, reinforced, or challenged through these narratives. Ultimately, this research demonstrates how fiction, both literary and visual, functions as a space to imagine and reimagine the past, while creating new avenues for visibility, empowerment, and inspiration in women’s football. It argues that while narratives about female football protagonists are shaped by their sociopolitical contexts, they also play a powerful role in critiquing those contexts and challenging restrictive notions to do with the woman footballer.