An entry to Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as prompts for new reflections"
"Miss Nettie Honeyball captain of the British Ladies Football Club who is coming to America to initiate American girls into the mysteries of football". |
This is what every lady footballer was wearing in 1895. The gloriously appropriately named Miss Nettie Honeyball. Hettie was a pioneer of football who persuaded J W Julian (a player for Tottenham Hotspur) to coach the British Ladies Football Club, training took place twice a week and the first football match was played in 1895 at Crouch End, dividing the players up to play north against south (London that is rather then England). The North won 7-1. The Manchester Guardian reported on the match "Their costumes came in for a good deal of attention.... one or two
added short skirts over their knickerbockers.... When the novelty has
worn off, I do not think women's football will attract the crowds."
Dick Kerr's Ladies 1921 |
The male run Football Association unsettled by the popularity of the women's game and no doubt also by the changing role of women in society banned women's games at all its members grounds, saying that women were not physically suitable for playing the game. This did not stop Dick Kerr's Ladies they continued to play on non FA grounds and toured North America becoming the most famous of all female football teams.
Hayes Ladies training in the 1930s |
So here am I on the left stood next to Jim our coach who used to play for Preston North End home of that first match of Dick Kerr's Ladies. We also were a sort of company team as we all worked at Vickers Shipbuilding and this photo I think was taken at the company's sports club in about 1966 or 7. We, like Dick Kerr's Ladies, also played for charity on hockey grounds, rugby grounds, anywhere, but of course not on a football ground. Things could be tricky for our goalkeeper Karen when playing under rugby posts. We had a great deal of fun and lots of exercise. In 1971 the Football Association lifted the ban on women's football.