DICK,LADIES AND CO

It is the big documentary tonight (18th July 2018) on Channel 4 at 10 pm, hosted by Clare Boulding. It is about Ladies Football and particularly Dick, Kerr Ladies a team formed in a Preston munitions' factory (Dick, Kerr and Co) during the First World War. Letting women play raised morale, especially when they lpayed against the men!

Women's football has been part of my blog series and several references have been highlighted in the past; here they are.
http://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/women-are-useless-at-playing-it.html
http://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/women-to-fore-at-last.html
http://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/locked-out-or-locked-in-with-and.html

The 2017 European Women's Championship have begun, with England playing Scotland tomorrow.
The Dick, Kerr Ladies football team and their free scoring teenage centre forward, Lily Parr, basked briefly in the type of publicity that our modern women enjoy today.
Have a look at Lily's "history".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Parr

The team existed between 1917 to 1965 playing 828 games, winning 758. Their first match was against the Arundel Coulthard Factory at Deepdale on Christmas Day 1917. 10,000 saw the Kerr Ladies win 4-0.

All money raised went to military charities. The Daily Post stated that the ladies suffered less from stage fright than their opponents (men) and had a better understanding of the game.

These pioneers were so popular that in 1920 they played St Helens Ladies in front of 53,000 at Goodison Park.

So POPULAR were they that the FA banned women's football the following year, stopping them from playing on the FA's affiliated pitches on the principle that football was "unsuitable for females".
Money and politics suddenly took over and one doctor announced that "the kicking is too jerky a movement for women. The hard knocks on the football field are bad for future mothers."

There was a "first international" against France in 1920 at Deepdale (2-0), then games at Stockport (5-2), Manchester (1-1) and Stamford Bridge (1-2). There was a return tour to France

Clare Boulding gets her gander up over the the "way of putting women back in their places". In the kitchen perhaps?

Where would our ladies have been today if the ban had not slowed down progress. The ban lasted until 1971 and the FA "recognised" women's football eventually in 1993.!

Gail Newsham, an ex-footballer, is the author of Dick, Kerr's official history, "In a League of their Own".