Discover women’s football then and now a game of quartet

Learning about pioneers in women’s football history is now made fun, by the collected effort of Marisa Schlenker and Anika Leslie-Walker, both part of the Football Makes History team. The game will be made available in the coming months, but here is a heads-up of what is coming.

In this article:

• Gaming and trumping
• Women’s Football Quartet & Top Trumps
• An activity for both non-formal and formal educational settings
• Stay tuned for the Football Makes History Toolkit!

Gaming and trumping

Quartet is a (commercial) card game which is normally played with 32 cards, divided into eight groups of four cards. The game is played with two or more players with the aim to win all the sets of four cards. Quartet is usually played with special motif cards and when designed for children, aligns with the goal of learning new information, understanding relationships and acquiring new content.

The categories of quartet cards vary from technical topics such as cars to famous people, such as footballers.  There have also been modifications to the format of the game with the introduction of Top Trumps in 1978. In Top Trumps packs, each card contains a list of numerical data, and the aim of the game is to compare these values to try to “trump” your opponent’s card.

The Top Trumps football packs include cards with players’ statistics and numerical data in addition to a short description or aspect of one’s biography. The newer cards are designed to deliver and amplify learning through playing, reading / comparing and understanding facts.

Women’s Football Quartet & Top Trumps

A search for women’s football quartet cards or Top Trumps women’s football packs leads one to very limited options. The few options which do exist include all modern day players. We saw this gap as an opportunity to create a new type of card game, similar to Top Trumps which would include women footballers, both pioneers and current day stars from across eight European countries. Not only would the end users get a chance to learn facts about players from across Europe but also snippets from their biographies and successes from their national and club teams.

With active images of the players and the colors on the cards representing their national team’s, youth learners will be exposed to an extraordinary list of women football pioneers who helped to pave the way for current growth of the women’s game. If youth aren’t exposed to these historical and modern day players, it becomes normalized to only see male players. For female youth especially, it is so important to have a way to see these players and connect their faces to facts and narratives.

An activity for both non-formal and formal educational settings

End users of the cards can test them out in formal and non-formal settings. In both classrooms in non-formal settings, the cards can be used as a facilitation tool to divide the larger group into smaller ones, to find partners to use as reflection cards, etc. In sport environments, the cards can be integrated into races and different team activities. In the classroom, the cards can be incorporated into lessons on gender equality, women’s history and much more.

Stay tuned for the Football Makes History Toolkit!

This article might give you a taste of the game we have developed in the project. We look forward to sharing it with you all in the next months! The design is made possible thanks to the support of Paige Walder who is the digital artist who designed the cards, and research done by other members of Football Makes History.