THE treatment of women in sport is making headlines anew with British Cycling, Rowing and Canoeing all under scrutiny in the "athlete welfare scandal" engulfing three of our most successful Olympian disciplines.

Perfect timing then, quite by chance, for Hull Truck Theatre to be presenting the world premiere of Amanda Whittington's boxing drama, Mighty Atoms, and for York company Off The Rock Productions to mark the centenary of the formation of the Dick, Kerr Ladies Football Club in Benjamin Peel's Not A Game For Girls, a title that says it all.

Whittington, the writer of such female-centric works as Ladies Day and Amateur Girl, has taken the story of Cottingham's own Mighty Atom, Battling Barbara Buttrick, the shorthand typist and two-fisted fighter, as the launch pad for Mighty Atoms. Buttrick, 4ft 11 inches of fast feet, fast hands and quick mind, had to fight her way to being world champion in America in the 1940s and '50s, when banned over here by the Variety Artists Federation.

Still full of fighting spirit in her eighties, she brought the house down by making an appearance at the close of press night: truly a knock-out finale.

Buttrick, in the pocket dynamo form of Kat Rose-Martin, opens the play too, her steps and breathing patterns setting the rhythm for Sophie Cotton's compositions and Mathew Clowes's brilliant sound designs. She becomes the play's Greek chorus, always in the ear of Caitlin Drabble's disgraced former Olympian Taylor Flint, the Buttrick of her day in the 2012 Olympics, only to end up doing time.

Out on parole, Flint has had it with the sport until Nora Cooke (Judi Earl), landlady of a struggling pub on one of Hull's toughest streets, persuades her to run a women's boxercise class and ultimately put on an unlicensed fight night fundraiser to save the boozer. Enter Lauren (Danielle Henry), Polish cleaner Aneta (Maya Barcot), diffident, withdrawn Jazz (Olivia Sweeney) and volatile Grace (Anna Doolan) from the rough, tough local estate.

Whittington writes brilliantly for each character's battles with everyday life, replete with humour, pathos, spunk and clout, and director Mark Babych and movement director Ella Robson Guilfoyle combine superbly like a tag team to maximise the visual impact of this stunning piece of physical theatre. It would be wrong to award a winner on points among the cast but Drabble, as the Raging Bull/Rocky figure, and Doolan, a huge comic talent in the making, are sensationally good.

Mighty Atoms is the third play in the Hull Trilogy that lies at the heart of Hull Truck's revival under Babych's ebullient artistic direction. Add the broadening impact of Hull UK City of Culture, and Hull has found its voice, a mighty tiger's roar.

York Press:

Laura Castle as Lily Parr in Not A Game For Girls. Picture: Hannah Argyle

Not A Game For Girls is a production on a smaller scale, staged by one of York's burgeoning companies, Off The Rock Productions, who must rely on imagination and inspiration in the absence of funding. Launched by producer, writer and actor Matthew Wignall, they have primarily focused on nights of vignettes previously but now spread their wings across a full-scale play with accompanying film footage by Blue Tomato Studio.

Lighting by Harriet Mayne and set design by Paul Mason are straightforward, the costumes by Carly Brown bear the fruit of period research, but rightly the focus is on Peel's storytelling and the performances of Alison Young's predominantly young company on a somewhat restrictive linear stage.

Peel favours short scenes, initially too staccato for building momentum, but as we learn more of the Preston and St Helens factory girls that played for the groundbreaking Dick, Kerr Ladies team from 1917 to 1921, especially of Laura Castle's hard-bitten Lily Parr and Hannah Jade Robbins' Alice Woods, so the play takes a grip, especially in the shadow of the Great War's impact.

"Football is quite unsuitable for women and should not be encouraged," decided the Football Association, imposing a ban in 1921. It stayed in place for 50 years.

Mighty Atoms, Hull Truck Theatre/Hull UK City of Culture, at Hull Truck Theatre until July 1; box office, hulltruck.co.uk or 01482 323638. Not A Game For Girls, Off The Rock Productions, at Friargate Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Sunday; box office, ridinglights.org or 01904 613000.