An early ladies' fixture, in February 1917, was between Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company and North East Marine. Local naval ratings and dock workers on Tyneside, encouraged women to learn how to play the game, "controlling the elusive pigskin". Some matches against men were organised with the males having to play with their hands tied behind their backs. No grabbing at corners then!
These matches were often played on league pitches, such as St James' Park and Ayresome, attracting huge crowds, once reaching over 50,000, as curious football fans crammed into stadia with the takings going to the war effort, such as the Blyth Military Merit and Homecoming Fund.
From August 1917, Bella played centre forward for Blyth Spartans in the Munitions Cup Final and the lady players were known as "Munitionettes". Each munitions factory formed a team and entered the tournament, with the main intent of raising money for their named charity. The teams were made up from female dockers and factory workers and they attracted huge crowds, some of whom witnessed Bella scoring 4 goals in the final. In that season she scored 133 goals in 30 games, inlcuding 6 in one match.
At the end of the 1918 season she appeared twice for an England XI, although she should have ben selected more often, but preferred to play for her home side.
Bella then featured for Jarrow Palmers, a team that won the cup the following year and she was the only player to get two winners medals. The report below covers the history of ladies football in the NE in excellent detail.
https://blythspirit.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/ladies-doing-it-for-themselves/
In 1921, once hostilities had finished, womens' football was abandoned, banned by the "forward thinking FA", who refused to let females play with or against men and certainly not on "official pitches".
Bella eventually married and took the name of Henstock, living on a farm.
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