PRIDE MONTH 2025! When a project has been shortlisted for both the First Graphic Novel Competition and the LDComics Prize you know it has quite the impressive back story. Anna Trench’s Florrie: A Football Love Story works on multiple levels. It’s a period account of the malign control of the patriarchy. It’s also a spotlight on a forgotten sporting era, largely erased from history. And it’s a quietly beautiful story of the bonds of friendship and queer love.
At the crux of Florrie is the hugely popular women’s football game of the early twentieth century, and its subsequent banning as unseemly by the English Football Association in 1921. This graphic novel uses an interesting form of speculative flashback as, in more contemporary times, the titular Florrie’s grand-niece is clearing through her belongings after her death. From these artefacts she discovers hidden facets to her great-aunt’s life that are revelatory and yet, simultaneously, open up new questions about her hidden past.
Shifting backwards in time we observe as a young Florrie becomes involved in the heavily supported (and thus threatening to some) women’s game. Coming from a more privileged background she hides her involvement in football, playing for the Holt Ladies team, from her family for fear of disapproval. This becomes increasingly difficult as she tours with her teammates. A meeting when playing In France leads to her coming to terms with her burgeoning queer identity and a relationship through correspondence and snatched moments around footballing competitions begins. But when the FA ban the women’s game in 1921 life changes forever for Florrie and her group of friends…
Trench’s art feels both freeform and intricate in a slightly indefinable way. This mix of reality and the expressionistic, in the latter regard especially in terms of visual characterisation, roots the reader in both this otherwise detailed world and the emotional core of the cast. Trench’s narrative is conjectural yet affectionate, using the central character as representative of all the queer voices whose contributions to society have suffered through erasure.
There’s something as well about the compact size of this book that enhances that feeling of intimacy we have with Florrie as we observe her journey. The power of this story is very much in its understatement, making the social injustices of the time it is set in feel all the more pronounced for its nuance and subtlety. Strong breakout work from a creator who has been on the periphery of finding a far wider readership for a few years now. Florrie: A Football Love Story is that moment.
Anna Trench (W/A) • Jonathan Cape, £20.00
Review by Andy Oliver
