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99 years ago today the FA banned Women from playing football on any pitch owned by their associated clubs, changing the course of the Women’s game for the next century.
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The ban appeared to be a knee-jerk reaction to the popularity of the women’s game. Following the forced hiatus of the Football League during WWI, teams like Dick Kerr’s Ladies were attracting massive crowds while raising large amounts of money for charity.
In 1920 Dick Kerr were so dominant that they even represented England, defeating a French side 2-0 in front of a crowd of 25,000. This would be recorded as the first International Women’s fixture. That’s Dick Kerr’s Lily Parr in white, we’ll come onto her later.
On Boxing Day 1920, Dick Kerr drew in 53,000 fans to Goodison Park, at the time this was believed to be the largest attendance at any football match in England since records began.
With the FA feeling that such popularity threatened the men’s game, in 1921 they declared clubs must refuse the use of their grounds for such matches".
Dick Kerr and other women’s teams didn’t give up. “The team will continue to play, if the organisers of charity matches will provide grounds, even if we have to play on ploughed fields” said Pop Frankland, Dick Kerr’s manager
In 1926 the team changed its name to Preston Ladies FC and although they were forced into playing in front of reduced crowds, they still attracted on average 5000 fans to every game.
The main attraction? Lily Parr. At 6ft tall, playing outside left, there has never been a goalscorer like her. Scoring 980 goals in a remarkable 32 year career, she was one of football’s true pioneers.
In 1936 she earned Preston Ladies the unofficial title of World Champions as they beat Edinburgh Ladies. That season she scored a head spinning 135 goals. One match programme described her as “big, fast and powerful, tricky and she can take corner kicks better than most men."
It would take 50 years for the FA to reverse their decision in 1971, the damage was inconceivable. Today’s gulf in resources and exposure between the mens and womens game is a direct result of that decision on December 4th 1921, a day that changed football forever.
It would then take another 37 years for the FA to apologise. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/feb/11/newsstory.womensfootball
And what happened to Lily Parr? In 2002 she became the first women to be inducted into the English Hall of Fame and then in 2019 she became the first female footballer in England to be commemorated by a statue.
True Greatness.
True Greatness.
