Reviewing football history through the UK Web Archive

Abstract

• The UK Web Archive aims to archive, preserve and give access to the UK webspace. This aim is achieved through an annual domain crawl, in addition to frequent crawls of selected websites and specially curated collections. These collections reflect important aspects of British culture and events that shape society. Sport and in particular football, make up a large section of the UK webspace. For this reason, the UK Web Archive started a curated collection on these subjects in autumn 2017. This article acts as a guide to the collections, using football as an example of the type of research that can be done, rather than a critical analysis of contemporary collection policies or the examples highlighted. It is hoped that this article will increase the use of the UK Web Archive and lead to a further review of how the sports studies field adapts as well as engages with digital resources.