In this week’s list of unmissable news brand content: a fight to end women quitting to football, a fashion show shining a light on illegally dumped second-hand clothes and a beloved girl band pays a touching tribute…
1. Stop girls quitting football
Former footballer Jill Scott tells the i more needs to be done to stop girls quitting football — starting with access to pitches at grassroots level. Scott is proud of how far the game has progressed in the three decades since she was a seven-year-old, when the prospect of a career in professional football didn’t exist. But new findings find that in some areas the game has not moved on.
The research, conducted by Starling Bank as part of The Kick On Manifesto, reveals that 56% of female players have booked a pitch only to have it reallocated to male players. Almost a third told researchers that it happens frequently.
Last year, further research found that girls were dropping out of football at a much faster rate than boys, due to factors such as not seeing a clear pathway into the sport, body image and bullying. Almost a third of girls had left the game by the time they were in their late teens.
“Things are a lot better now”, Scott says. “The Women’s Super League has full-time footballers, playing in front of 50-60,000 people, which is fantastic. We need to make sure we don’t create these gaps in the pyramid — we need to be strong in the foundation.”
2. Artists recreate 50p D-Day coin
The Royal Mint has unveiled a new 50p coin created to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Details of the historic event were intricately engraved onto the coin.
In honour of the launch, two sand artists replicated a new 50p coin honouring the Normandy beaches where troops landed in 1944. Jehan-Benjamin Tarain, with support from Sam Dougados, drew the art in the sand of Gold Beach.
The “tails” side of the coin portrays allied soldiers disembarking a landing craft onto the beaches of Frances with offensive aircraft in the sky above. The sand design is 35 metres in diameter and took five hours and 30 minutes to complete.
3. Girls Aloud pay touching tribute
Girls Aloud performed a tear-jerking tribute to their late bandmate Sarah Harding as they as they opened their comeback tour in Dublin.
The famous girl band made up of Cheryl Tweedy, Nadine Coyle, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh had vowed their first performance since 2013 would celebrate the life of Harding. The late singer died in 2021 from breast cancer aged 39. Footage of Harding playing on pink curtains behind them as they performed for the first time without their beloved bandmate.
Despite putting on an emotional performance, they powered through with the hit song Love Machine as more snaps of Sarah appeared in the background. Speaking of the highly anticipated six-week tour, Walsh, explained: “Our main aim is to do Sarah justice.”
4. Castoffs to catwalk
Designers and activists organised a fashion event in April, dubbed Atacama Fashion Week, to raise awareness of the 39,000 tones of discarded second-hand clothes illegally dumped in the Atacama desert each year. The event highlighted the reality people live with, as well as what can be made out of the waste.
According to the latest UN figures, Chile is the third largest importer of second-hand clothes in the world. The fashion show shone a light on Chile’s clothes dump that is visible from space, highlighting the damage caused by the ‘global sacrifice zone’ in the Atacama desert. Read the full story in the Guardian here.
5. My London: AJ Tracey
In the latest series of ES Magazine’s ‘My London’ feature, artist AJ Tracey shares his insight on cutting loose with British rapper Big Zuu and talking Spurs with London cab drivers.
Tracey shares his thoughts on what makes someone a Londoner, describing the quality as something “[that’s] in your attitude. It’s the way that you see the world. We’re creative but business-minded”.
He also speaks about his upcoming album and how his mum and Skepta are his biggest heroes. To read more, click here.
