It's A Man's Game... But Not Any More!
For so long, football was considered to be a man's game played by men. In the early years of organised football, it was the men who ventured forth across the mowed grasslands of football pitches throughout the land. Ladies watched from the sidelines, specially prepared sandwiches or even orange slices at the ready for half-time. The ladies didn't get involved with playing what was ostensibly a man's game.
Then, in the 1920s, something quite extraordinary happened. Women were introduced to the pastime of playing the man's game. The worm was turning and ladies were donning football kits and learning how to kick a heavy leather football about without missing it and falling over. And a little-known factory in the north of England spawned what was to probably be the most famous women's football team of them all.
The Dick, Kerr Ladies football team was formed in Preston, Lancashire and instantly became a popular attraction in the first decade following the First World War. Founded in 1917, the team grew out of the Dick, Kerr munitions factory, formed by the female workforce. But they really came to prominence in the early Twenties.
The ladies played mostly charity games and in their early years amassed quite a gathering at most venues they played at. Reports of a crowd of around 10,000 at Deepdale (Preston North End) on Christmas Day in 1917 and in excess of 53,000 spectators at Goodison Park (Everton) in 1920 showed that the Dick, Kerr ladies were no five minute wonders.
Also in 1920, the Dick, Kerr team played in the first women's international match when they challenged a ladies' team from France, winning 2-0 at Deepdale. The attendance was reported to have been around the 25,000 mark. In the return game a week or two later, the French got their revenge in a 2-1 win in Paris.
In 1922, a year after the Football Association banned women from playing on FA affiliated grounds, the Dick, Kerr team went on tour to North America but were banned from playing against men's teams. Large crowds were reported to have gathered to watch their games against the women's teams, however.
In a move that nowadays would probably kick up all the stink imaginable, the Football Association decreed that football was 'unsuitable for females'. The Dick, Kerr ladies team was also affected by this ban because the FA had cited that charity funds were mismanaged, a thinly veiled excuse for the FA wanting women out of what they obviously saw as a 'men only' sport.
The ban on women's football lasted for 50 years until the decision was reversed in 1971. The Dick, Kerr ladies team was disbanded in the 1950s, almost 20 years before the ban on women's football was lifted. Since 1971, though, women's football in England in particular has seen a sharp rise in popularity. The England women's team is currently setting a trend as being a trailblazing unit.
But there are those who are still opposed to women playing in what is considered among many to be a male dominant sport. Arguments abound about how quickly women's football has created professional clubs attached to mens' Premier League teams, how some women players have been claiming they are as good as, or even better than, their male counterparts, how women have integrated themselves into mens' football punditry and attaching themselves to the likes of BBC's 'Match of the Day', while male pundits hardly ever get invited to appear on 'The Women's Football Show'. Those men who talk against women in football are rightly or wrongly denounced as being misogynistic for having such views. But, here's the rub, would anybody, male or female, object today if women's football had never been banned and the ladies teams were allowed to grow alongside their male counterparts since 1921...?
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The Dick, Kerr Ladies' Team, 1923 (This photo is in the public domain) |