By Weronika Lecka, French and Spanish First Year
Home Ground, which explores friendship, football and community, is the latest show from Bristol Old Vic’s Young Company, directed by Krista Matthews and devised by the Company. It was presented at Bristol Old Vic between 15-18th January to allow all football fans in the nearby area to watch this unique production.

This production is about a successful grassroots women's football team, The Griffins, which manages to defeat everyone in their local area but is suddenly informed that they are being evicted from their local football pitch in place of plans to build houses and a car park. As a result, the girls try to win back their pitch, protesting that it is a piece of women's football history and they don't have the money to hire private 4G pitches.
Home Ground was performed in The Weston Studio theatre, which was newly formed from the oldest part of Bristol Old Vic’s building, opening in October 2018.
'It heralded the theatre’s re-energised commitment to inspiring visitors, Ferment-developed productions, work for and by young people and genre-busting collaborations' - according to the Bristol Old Vic website.
UBWFC Social media sec, Lola Kearney, informed us of this event and invited members of the club to attend on Friday the 17th and celebrate the promotion of women's football in theatre. The show began at 7pm which was a good as it accommodate my 4:45-6pm training session at Coombe Dingle. With open concession tickets only being £8, the prices were especially well placed in accommodating student audiences.

Upon arrival, the booth was full of people ordering food and drinks or waiting in line for a ticket. The staff were very helpful as they told me where I needed to go to find my seat as I had never been to the Old Vic before whilst also informing me to avoid walking on the patch of Astroturf grass used for the play. Once I found my seat I met up with some other UBWFC members as we were sat near the right side (or stage left!) of the stage and the play commenced.

We all found the production very enjoyable and entertaining, especially with how it related to women's football. It was great to see that the entire theatre was full of spectators and the production drew a lot of laughs. Entertaining moments were Terry's singing, the inspiring monologues of the team during the protest for their pitch at the cup match, and the funny dialogue between the players and manager. We also found the show quite relatable to our own experiences of football matches since the girls were often shown talking in locker rooms, preparing for training and meeting new players that have just joined their team - all of which are quite collective experiences in football.
I personally liked how they all had great costumes from football kits to authentic football boots and lots of props such as team banners that were hung across the theatre. The use of real Astroturf with white markings also made the production quite authentic and also added additional effect as the 'buildings company' gradually took pieces of the Astroturf away from the girls, symbolising both the time running out and the lose of control/ownership of their pitch. The actors and actresses also often addressed the audience directly during their punchlines which made the show even more entertaining.

A great addition was the inclusion of a sign language translator, which made the show accessible to those with hearing difficulties. The show was around 1 hour long so not too long, but the production was so entertaining that the duration wouldn't have mattered too much.
'I just thought it was a worth watching performance as it reflects many aspects of women’s football that not many people know about. A lot of feelings, connections, frustrations, sacrifices and insights you only get to understand them when you are part of a women’s football team.' - UBWFC member and Sports Activator An

I personally found this production to be very entertaining and inspiring, and hopefully it drew some people's attention to the importance of women's football. Most of the shows were sold out, which is very inspiring to see that more people are interested in this kind of production and topic. Theatre is a beautiful art from that I think should be appreciated more, and it is great to see that productions like these are being made.
If you would like to see what else Bristol Old Vic has on offer, please click here to view their website.
Featured images - Weronika Lecka, Bristol Old Vic engagement and Anna Bowes