Winner: Professor Fiona Skillen
Professor Fiona Skillen has worked tirelessly over the last decade to promote women’s contribution to Scottish sporting history. She has helped to foster relationships and networks which have helped to create projects to promote women’s sporting history including Play Like A Lassie and working with football clubs such as Hearts FC and Hampden. She has used her platform as Professor to promote women’s stories via tv, radio and exhibitions. Crucially, she has mentored and supported early career researchers and academics to continue researching women’s sporting history.
Fiona is a leading light in women’s sporting heritage. She has made her research on women’s interwar sports, fun, engaging and accessible to a wide audience. She truly is a promoter of women’s history and an excellent example of academic engagement in public history.
Find out more: @FionaSkillen on X and Professor in History, Glasgow Caledonian University
Winner: Julia Lee
Julia Lee has spearheaded the Women in Rugby League project, which collects and records the history of the women’s game, which has never before been officially recorded by any other organisation. Without the determination and perseverance of Julia Lee, the history of the women’s game would be forgotten, and the legacy of the female players and support staff would go unrecognised. As a result of Julia’s work, over 150 former women’s rugby league players were awarded their heritage numbers and caps for playing internationally for their country – many of these players had been waiting for over 20 years for this recognition.
As part of the Women in Rugby League project Julia hosted a ‘Pride of the Lionesses’ celebration event, to allow these players to be put on the pedestal they deserve. Off the back of this success, the Women in Rugby League project has now been awarded National Lottery Heritage Funding to go in-depth in to the history of of the women (and their male allies) who have played and maintained women’s rugby league clubs and competitions since the 1980s. This is again, something that has never been officially submitted to record.
Find out more: www.womeninrugbyleague.org.uk