Football for All?

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."

 Well he was wrong.  Jump to the next century and

Dick Kerr's Ladies 1921

 enter Dick Kerr's Ladies, dispensing with the ties but adding a neat hat.  Dick, Kerr and Co was a tramway and light railway company in Preston which was converted to making munitions during World War 1. Competitive sport was thought a good way to improve the moral of factory workers and after the women beat the men at the Dick, Kerr factory a proper team was formed playing for charity taking on the name of their workplace. The first match was at the Preston North End ground of Deepdale in 1917 drawing a crowd of 10,000.  They continued to play and in 1920 played their first international matches against France (won 2, drew 1 and lost 1).  After the UK tour by the French, the Dick Kerr Ladies went on an extensive tour of France.  The publicity gained from this meant when on Boxing Day 1920 they took on St Helens at Everton's ground of Goodison Park a crowd of 53,000 came to watch.  They beat St Helens 4-0.

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

Football is sometimes called the people's game so nothing is going to stop half the population playing it even if the FA didn't allow it on their fields of play for the next 50 years.

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.