The Big Match

On December 5th 1921, The Football Association (a male bastion!) declared its opposition to women’s football. Officially, it considered women not physically capable of playing the game but unofficially, the growing popularity of the women’s game was causing men some concern. There was competition. The FA couldn’t stop women playing football but they could – and did – ban any FA member club allowing their ground to be used for a women’s football match. Remarkably the ban lasted until 1971 and was over turned 50 years ago.

Today is the Women’s Cup Final and the lead up to the match is fully covered by the Press, Talksport Radio, BBC1  and other media productions. The Olympics 2012 led to the Global change in awareness of women’s football but quite frankly soccer had been available for women for more than an century.

Women’s football has a longer history than most people would expect. There were a number of women’s clubs in the 1890s and one in north London was reported to have attracted a 10,000 gate to a game at Crouch End. Preston was the stronghold of women’s football in its early days, the famous Dick Kerr’s Ladies being formed there in 1894 and earning a lot of money for charity. Their match with St Helen’s Ladies on Boxing Day 1920 had 53,000 inside Goodison Park, and thousands more locked outside.

The FA banned women’s football from its clubs’ grounds but its view that football was ‘quite unsuitable for females’ changed towards the end of the 1960s. The Women’s FA (WFA) was formed in 1969 and within three years the first 'Women’s FA Cup Final' and England Women’s international had been played. The FA invited the WFA to affiliate on the same basis as a County Association in 1983 and ten years later established a Women’s Football Committee to run the women’s game in England.

Doncaster Belles were the first winners of the Women’s FA Cup, England won their first international under the FA’s auspices 10-0 in Slovenia and the FA began to administer a new FA Women’s Premier League with three divisions. The FA outlined its plans to develop the women’s game from grassroots to elite level in 1997 and in the following year appointed Hope Powell as the England Women’s national coach. Football had become the top participation sport for women and girls in England by 2002 and the profile of the women’s game was further boosted by the hosting of major tournaments in 2005 and 2012, with England’s achievement in reaching one European Final and two World Cup quarter finals, and the launching of The FA Women's Super League.

A potted history of Women’s Football in England:

1895: The first women's football match. North of England beat The South 7-1.

1920: The first women’s international game. Preston-based Dick Kerr’s Ladies (below) beat a French XI 2-0. Attendance: 25,000. 53,000 watch Dick Kerr's Ladies beat St Helen's Ladies 4-0 on Boxing Day.

1921: The FA bans women from playing on Football League grounds. “…the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged."

 

1969: The Women's Football Association (WFA) is formed with 44 member clubs.

1971: The FA Council lifts the ban which forbade women playing on the grounds of affiliated clubs.

1971: In the first Women's FA Cup Final, Southampton beat Stewarton and Thistle 4-1.

1972: The first official women's international in Britain is played at Greenock. England beat Scotland 3-2.

1983: The FA invites the WFA to affiliate on the same basis as County Football Associations.