A 100 YEARS SINCE DICK, KERR-YOU CAN SEE THEIR KNEES!

 https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3994718670252035536/1052809114633956877

Above is a previous Blog based on Dick, Kerr Ladies. On Boxing Day 1920 (a Centenary), 53,000 spectators crowded into Goodison Park to witness a "spectacle" and as many as 15,000 were locked out of the ground. Crowds flocked across Stanley Park, Liverpool, to see the Ladies beat St Helen's Ladies 4-0. 

Dick, Kerr and Co, was a munitions' factory in Preston and the Ladies were female footballers, who worked in the factory. They played football to raise money for the War effort. Their first game was played on Christmas Day 1917, at Deepdale, Preston. The photograph shows their black and white shirts, light blue shorts (very saucy at the time), black and white socks and the hats to contain their long hair. They had toured France, boosting their publicity and hence attracting bigger crowds.

Gail Newsham, the author of "In a League of their Own", tells of the  growth of ladies' football at this time with mens' football suspended due to the war effort. Of course, women worked in munitions' factories, hospitals and in other services. These ladies' games collected money initially for Preston's Moor Park Military Hospital, so Newsham was a two time Women's FA Cup semi-finalist with her club Preston Rangers, now known as AFC Fylde Women. Her interest has led to various money raising efforts and an awareness that the money raised by the original team was worth in excess of £10 million today. The ladies were not a "fashion item" but seriously good footballers, with Lily Parr. a star! See the link and also go to the National Football Museum in the Spring to see a gallery devoted to her career and life. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXi8-js9Y4Q  and this is very good, too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ETBTtnlX4

By 1937, the Ladies' manager, Alfred Frankland, the team's manager, recorded 437 matches, winning 424 and scoring 2863 goals. What the opposition was like is debatable, but you have to beat what is put in front of you!

When you read the link, you will realise that the FA, considered women playing football to be unsuitable, with potential impacts on fertility, should they be injured! (presumably affected the war effort?) If people were going to watch women's matches then men's match attendances would suffer. However the pioneering women defied the FA and played on despite being banned from pitches owned by members of the FA (i.e. virtually, any club of any note!) For 50 years women's football was in the wilderness. 

The team folded in 1965 completing 833 games, winning 759 and drawing 46.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbydyjfFeFw This starts with a bit of Dick, Kerr and then moves on to George Best!!