Anna Trench

The wonderful Anna Trench... beautifully drawn and very well written

Alison Bechdel, author of FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC

With the Women’s Euros under way at last, what could be more timely than this beautiful, understated first graphic novel by Anna Trench?... Warm and inspiriting as well as delicately painful, it surely heralds the arrival of a big new talent in the world of the cartoon

As well as being a book about football this is also a book about seeing the life you want on the horizon and reaching out, as best you can, to meet it. A tender, quiet book which packs a gently devastating punch.

Charming and incredibly moving. I loved it from start to finish and cried at the end.

Such a moving and heart-warming book. A poignant exploration of the worlds of freedom that open and close around us, both in our futures and in our pasts. Most of all, Florrie is bright with the feeling of liberation, and the risks and joys of following your heart.

In love with it... Florrie had us in floods of tears. Twice... Whatever she does next quite literally can’t come fast enough for us.

I enjoyed every page. So good to see a bande desinee book as fine and original in terms of story and illustration, and in England. I thought it tender and true. Remarkable.

[It has] the emotional intelligence and sharpness of Paula Knight and Alison Bechdel... so beautifully captures the experience of playing, belonging... The book is so timely....I so admire the way this book has found a way to bring this history into public view as a part of the conversation about the game now.

Between the - beautifully drawn and deceptively simple - lines of Florrie there is a world of suppressed desire and yearning. Florrie longs to play a forbidden game, to be in love, to move through terrible grief. Anna Trench vividly recreates the sadness and shock of the post-Great War era, when the FA banned women's football, and skilfully entwines it with a queer love story and a young woman becoming herself.

Miriam Gold, author of ELENA: A HAND MADE LIFE

A triumph for the art of the book, the women's game, and queer love. A quirky classic. Everything about it is wonderfully done - the drawings, dialogue, period detail, mischief and fun. I loved it.

Diana Souhami, author of NO MODERNISM WITHOUT LESBIANS

Florrie is a gem of a novel imagining the forces that give shape to a life as the young Florrie steps out into the world. Every page is luminous - delicately, thrillingly, alive with feeling.

If you put Alison Bechdel's Fun Home in football kit, you might come up with something like Florrie. It reminds me of the very best graphic novels - elegantly emotive, spare and vulnerable.

Florrie will take you on a journey with the power to imagine and play at its core. Football is a game but it is also a dance, a connector between each player on the pitch, and in Florrie the characters dance across time together... Anna Trench shows us the importance of a connected queer history to allow us to dance across our pitches today.

Quietly beautiful... 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.

A very moving story, told with immense wit and charm... informative and revelatory about the glorious success of women’s football

A beautifully crafted tale of women's football in the early 20th century

A football love story

*WINNER OF THE EAST ANGLIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025* 
 
The story of a young female footballer and the amazing hidden history of the women’s game, come to life in this prize-winning graphic novel about football, friendship and falling in love. 
 
'Beautifully drawn and very well written' ALISON BECHDEL 
 
'Bright with the feeling of liberation, and the risks and joys of following your heart' SEÁN HEWITT 
 
When Florrie’s great-niece discovers Florrie was a footballer in the early twentieth century, she unearths a secret history both on and off the pitch. 
 
Boxes from the attic contain photos, objects and letters, revealing football games and love affairs in Norfolk, London and Paris. Florrie’s adventures touch on both invented and real events: huge crowds at matches in London and Preston, international fixtures, dances at lesbian club Le Monocle in Paris, and the devastating consequences of the FA's 1921 ban on women's football. 
 
This is a story of self-discovery, friendship and queer love, alongside huge (and little known) historical moments for the women’s game. In Florrie, Anna Trench brings readers a beautifully drawn, evocative and warm-hearted love-song to an unforgettable woman and sport. 
 
'If you put Alison Bechdel's Fun Home in football kit, you might come up with something like Florrie' ZING TSJENG 
 
Charming and incredibly moving' RACHEL RAMSAY

Anna Trench

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