By Tanya Aldred
Thursday, August 9, 2001

Sport in England has never been so well covered in the print media. Under threat from the internet and satellite television, newspapers hoover up every detail, however prurient. Football magazines and fanzines flourish, the Observer produces a monthly sporting magazine, the Telegraph and the Times rustle up daily supplements, and if you consumed every sports story that existed in the Sunday papers you would risk a life-threatening attack of indigestion.

And that desperate search for something, anything, new has been a real boost for women's sport - think of the recent coverage of Denise Lewis, Ellen MacArthur or Venus Williams. It would have been unthinkable ten years ago. But take the glamour girls away and the picture doesn't look quite so bright - team events especially tend to be relegated to the inky In Brief or the monthly newsletter printed on tracing paper.

Yet despite the Ashes fast turning into Groundhog Day, there is an arena where British sport is moving forward. This month a new sort of magazine has been launched. The Sportswoman, 66 pages of features, book reviews, consumer and travel stories, nutrition and technical know-how, is devoted to women's competitive sport. Despite the failure of Total Sport, the UK's previous general sport magazine, editor Julie Potter, ex-England rugby player and now a full-time journalist, is confident that the magazine will flourish.

"There is a cross-interest in different women's sports across the female sporting community," she says. "Women netballers have a genuine interest in how the hockey team is doing, which isn't really the case with men's sports. If men have a passing interest in something they only have to turn on the television or flick on the radio. Women don't have those options and they also have various shared issues – sponsorship, portrayal in the media, body issues – and they tend to bond over that."

The magazine has high production values (not to mention some high-class advertisers in Berghaus, Elle and Oakley), and the tactility of a Cosmopolitan or a Marie Claire, though without the sex tips or the fluffiness. The gloss is something Potter is proud of.

"I think it is very important to portray women as the great athletes that they are – they are done no service by small blurry photos. Our audience will mostly have played sport at university and will be well educated and professional. They will have high expectations."

The Sportswoman is starting off as subscriber only, but Potter hopes that demand will take it to the fickle hands of the newsstand and the curious browser, even to men, though she admits that it is written with the competitive woman in mind.

As a concept it would have been unimaginable five years ago, but lottery funding has changed women's sports almost beyond recognition and created the right atmosphere. "There is now money where there was none, agrees Potter. "This has meant that performances have improved and with that comes respect and with respect a more open way of covering and reading about sport. It is certainly taken more seriously than it was when I first started as a sportswoman."

England's female cricketers might have won more sympathy than respect this summer, but they get a feature in the first issue, as Andrea Wiggins of the ECB talks up their future prospects.

This is a bit of a coup, as Webb isn't a big cricket fan. "I'm an American," she deadpans.

Fancy an American commissioning a piece on women's cricket for a glossy magazine. It is the best piece of news the team have had for a while. Now all they need to do is start winning.

To subscribe and discover more about the Sportswoman go to www.thesportswoman.com

Tanya Aldred is assistant editor of Wisden.com

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