On Christmas Day 1916, a football match provoked profound change in British society.
A team of women from Ulverston munitions factory in Cumbria, took to the field against a side
of female players from the rest of the country, winning
11-5. The idea caught on. Over the following months, teams
emerged from other munitions factories where, in support of the war effort, hundreds of
thousands of women were entering the workplace for the first
time. Matches were played with the aim of raising
money for hospitals and charities for wounded soldiers and,
initially, the Football Association and the press were both supportive of these games.
Though with the praise, unfortunately, also came the publication of
letters condemning players for the “unmentionable garments”
they wore on match days. Yet the sport grew exponentially. By September
1917, so many teams had formed that a nationwide league
was under way, and the inaugural final of the Munitionettes Cup was played in May 1918,
in front of 22,000 people at Ayresome Park.
Victory established Blyth Spartans as one of the best sides of the time and, with the
sport’s burgeoning popularity, landmark fixtures added to the
growing momentum. A Christmas Day 1917 match, for instance,
which was organised by munitionette Grace Sibbet, drew 10,000 spectators and raised
the equivalent of £40,000 for the Moor Park VAD Hospital.
Prior to these events, the First World War had devastated national sports. The men’s
Football League and FA Cup were suspended from 1915-19, with clubs
under pressure to encourage players to volunteer for military
service, prior to the advent of conscription, in 1916.
But now a new game had emerged. With teams cheered on by thousands-strong crowds in Preston,
Newcastle, Glasgow, Coventry and other industrial areas across the country, women’s football
had established itself as the sport of the wartime
working class. But the end of the war brought new challenges.
In 1919, the Government dealt a major blow to
women’s football through its Restoration of the Pre-War Practices Act. Women were forced
to leave their factory jobs, decimating most of the teams
and scattering their players to different parts of the country.
Faced by crisis, Dick, Kerr’s Ladies acted decisively. Manager Alfred Frankland persuaded
the factory owners to guarantee jobs for his players.
And Dick, Kerr’s had big plans, for which they received the owners’
financial backing. Recognising that the best players from other teams across the country
had found themselves in precarious positions, Frankland
set about individually recruiting them. For the price of relocation and leaving their
families, the players would be given factory jobs
and be part of an all-star football team. The result was one of the strongest women’s
football sides of all time, which included stars like Lily Parr, goalkeeper
Annie Hastie and captain Alice Woods. Dick, Kerr’s became
the dominant side of their era, at their peak attracting as many as 35,000 supporters to
their games. And their ambition took them even further.
From late April to early May 1920 Dick, Kerr’s played four fixtures against a side drawn
from the finest French players of the time. In total, 50,000
spectators witnessed two wins and draw for the home side, before
the French won a final game, 2-1 at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge.
France coach Alice Milliat had become a major pioneer for women’s sport. And together,
these teams brought women’s football onto an international
stage for the first time. The Stamford Bridge game was even
covered by Pathé News, the newsreel technology innovators, whose cameras recorded the game’s
highlights, ensuring an even broader audience.
By the end of 1920 Dick, Kerr’s were popular enough to attract a crowd of 53,000 at Everton’s
Goodison Park. This followed a year in which they had
played almost 30 domestic games, been on a return tour of
France, and in December, played the first ever football match held under spotlights.
Remarkably, their success had been achieved in an extremely turbulent post-war society.
In 1919, hundreds of thousands of soldiers returned from the
frontlines with unparalleled psychological damage from the
trench, only to be met with rocketing levels of unemployment and very little state support.
There was widespread anger at the Government and employers for the terrible conditions.
So much so, that millions of workers went on strike from 1919
to 1922. Others directed their anger at those they perceived to
have taken their jobs, and in 1919 race riots broke out in port cities like Liverpool and
Cardiff. Voting rights changed drastically too. The
suffragette movement achieved a partial victory when some
women were finally granted the right to vote in 1918, while men gained universal
suffrage. In other areas, the Government maintained
reactionary stances, passing legislation against homosexuality in
1921 and actively encouraging women to return to domestic roles occupied in pre-war Britain.
By 1921 women footballers had become the antithesis to this socially conservative atmosphere.
They wore shorts, smoked cigarettes and many cut their
hair short, flaunting convention of the time. Further moral panic
ensued when it became suspected that women’s football teams incubated same-sex relationships.
The success of women’s football was also a sore spot for the Government. While ex-soldiers
in desperate situations were being failed by
a lack of state support, women’s football stepped up in their place,
raising the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds for relief charities.
Then, when women’s teams began to fundraise for workers during the major 1921 coal strike,
the Government was undermined to an even greater
degree by what, increasingly, was a force pushing at major
social and political boundaries. Resistance got louder.
It was claimed that women were unsuitable for football, a view supported by the press,
who even published reports from leading doctors, providing a
contrived medical rationale for such bias. Not all of those voices
were male, either. Dr Ethel Williams, the first female doctor to practice in Newcastle,
while broadly supportive of female participation in sport,
had, she said, 'always been sorry that they had taken to football
instead of taking up some of the more suitable games.'
Dr Mary Scharlieb of Harley Street concurred, determining football to be a ‘most unsuitable
game, too much for a women’s physical frame.”
There are strong suggestions, too, that jealousy was at work. The 1921 FA Cup final had drawn
a crowd of 50,018, whereas Dick, Kerr Ladies, in an exhibition
played a few months later, attracted a very healthy
53,000. That popularity likely embarrassed the male game. Worse from their point of view,
it threatened male society with another source of female empowerment.
On 5th December 1921, The FA played their trump card, ordering that, on account of those
subjective medical opinions and, more vaguely, claims
that gate receipts were being misappropriated, its member clubs
should no longer allow women’s games to take place on their grounds.
It was devastating, but it was met by retaliation. In the aftermath, over 30 regional teams gathered
in Liverpool and, under the Presidency of Leonard
Bridgett, manager and coach of Stoke Ladies, founded the
English Ladies Football Association, the ELFA, with the aim of ‘popularising the game among
girls and to assist charity.’
The ELFA even made provisions to alter the game, making it more suitable for female players.
Their proposals included reducing the size of the
pitch, playing with a lighter football, eliminating charging and
allowing use of hands to protect the face. An exhibition was held under the new laws,
with invitations sent to various members of Fleet Street, urging them
to revise their opinions about the women’s game.
A further exhibition was held on Boxing Day, to which this time members of the medical
profession were invited, giving them the opportunity to reconsider
their diagnosis. By 1922, the association members had agreed
upon a set of laws for its fledgling association and also devised
a structure for its first competition, the English Ladies Football Association challenge
cup, which Leonard Bridgett’s Stoke Ladies would win, defeat
Doncaster & Bentley 3-1, in front of 2,000 supporters at Cobridge.
The FA’s ban remained hugely detrimental, though. Crowds suffered and players who had
previously performed in the same grounds as their male
counterparts, were consigned to inferior facilities, condemning
the game to the shadows and its stars to relative anonymity.
Ultimately, starved of funds and restricted by more natural obstacles, the ELFA would
barely last a year before folding. It would be another fifty
years before, in 1971 and at UEFA’s insistence, the restriction on
women’s playing rights was lifted, and a further 22 until, in 1993, the women’s game
was able to operate fully under the Football Association’s umbrella.