Chris Stride leads project that gives insights into UK society – such as statues of Lester Piggott outnumbering those of women. “There are more statues of Lester Piggott in the UK than there are of sporting women,” said the statistician Chris Stride with dismay. “It is really bad … there are hardly any at all.”.
![[Lily Parr statue]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1be22e4e5db4def5f981f94a4303411e36ccfe52/0_90_2333_3083/master/2333.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In fact, there are a fewer than a handful of sporting women celebrated with public statues. They include the pentathlete Mary Peters on the outskirts of Belfast; the 1930s Wimbledon champion Dorothy Round in Dudley; and the trailblazing footballer Lily Parr at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
![[Thierry Henry statue, which depicts him on his knees with clenched fists celebrating a goal]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bede043e79427a9552e81692dbfd3a1c80f0276a/0_140_4200_2520/master/4200.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
That is compared with more than 350 men, from Steve Ovett on Brighton seafront to John Curry at the ice skating arena in Sheffield, to a grimly determined arms-folded statue of Alex Ferguson outside Old Trafford in Manchester. Or a joyous, arms-aloft statue of Ferguson outside Pittodrie in Aberdeen.
![[Harry Kane posing alongside statue]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0d79dea4554025c96d29a28d318d52fef73066b5/0_391_5864_3518/master/5864.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
We know this because of the almost obsessive determination of Stride, a senior lecturer of applied statistics at the University of Sheffield and the driving force behind From Pitch to Plinth: the Sporting Statues project. For 14 years, Stride has been leading a team that records and researches statues of sportsmen and women around the world.
It is a project without end. In the coming weeks he will add about 20 UK statues and 120 US baseball statues. “There are about 120 football statues across the world we’ve got to add. We find them all the time. They are quite hard to search for on the internet … I can translate the word statue into lots of different languages for you.”.
