A new exhibition on women in football culture is drawing attention to a familiar but often overlooked experience: women being forced to justify their knowledge and loyalty to the game.
At the centre of the display is a quote from Newcastle fan Jo, who describes the frustration of being dismissed by men who assume they know more about football. The line appears midway through the exhibition and captures the tone of the wider project: women’s fandom has long been questioned, challenged and underestimated.
“I love that quote,” says Prof Stacey Pope, the sociologist behind Away From Home: The Untold Stories of Women Football Fans. Pope created the exhibition with David Wright of Durham University’s museums, galleries and exhibitions team. The showcase is designed to highlight how women have always had to defend and explain their place in football culture.
The exhibition is running at the Beacon of Light until the end of the season, and it is also available online.
Pope’s work focuses on the everyday realities of female supporters, especially the way their knowledge and commitment are often treated as secondary to men’s. By placing fan testimony at the heart of the project, the exhibition offers a reminder that women’s experiences of football are neither new nor marginal.
The display forms part of wider coverage around women’s football and the culture surrounding it, but its focus is historical as well as contemporary. It presents women not as newcomers to the game, but as supporters who have long been present and engaged, even when their expertise has been doubted.
Jo’s words reflect that tension clearly. Her remark about being told she does not know what she is talking about speaks to a wider pattern in football culture, where women fans are often made to prove themselves in ways that men are not. The exhibition uses such testimony to show how deeply rooted those assumptions have been.
By bringing together stories like Jo’s, Away From Home offers a broader view of what it means to be a football fan. It suggests that women have always been there, watching, travelling, learning and debating the game, even when others have tried to shut them out or speak over them.
For Pope, the power of the exhibition lies in the authenticity of those voices. Rather than presenting women’s football fandom as a novelty, it treats it as a long-standing part of the sport’s social history. The result is a portrait of supporters who are knowledgeable, determined and used to having to claim space in a culture that too often assumes otherwise.
The exhibition remains open at the Beacon of Light until the end of the season, with an online version available for those unable to visit in person.
Source note: This article is based on a Guardian feature on the exhibition and its aims, published on 14 April 2026.
