Women’s Football and the First World War

December 5 2021 marks the 100-year anniversary of women’s football being effectively banned by the FA and it’s progress set back by decades. The ban was finally formally lifted 50 years later in 1971.

Although there had been a brief flowering of women’s football in the late 19th century it wasn’t until the First World War was underway that it really took off in a significant way. With thousands of young women employed in the munitions factories an activity was needed to help them expend their energies when not working and in a manner not guaranteed to draw the attention of the guardians of morality as well as to boost wartime morale.

Female munitions workers soon became an essential part of the various often converted for purpose factories that were established nationwide. As they did so friendships were forged that naturally continued on to the playing fields and informal kickabouts became a leisurely way to spend their breaks.

With no sign of the conflict ending the women’s game was given more of a formal structure and following the suspension of all Football League matches at the end of the 1914-15 season women’s football teams across the country were formed mostly out of the munitions factories to play each other. The gate money raised was donated to various war charities and they soon began to attract sizeable crowds.

The team that went onto become the most famous in the country were the Dick, Kerr Ladies named after the two directors of the firm they founded in Preston. In Alfred Frankland, who worked at the company as a manager, they had a visionary leader who brought in figures from the men’s game to help train the side and he also made signings from other teams.

Whilst researching my play Not a Game for Girls about the Dick, Kerr team I read Tim Tate’s comprehensive Girls with Balls: The Secret History of Women’s Football (John Blake Publishing, 2013) which documents the early beginnings of the women’s game along with the social changes occurring simultaneously. I discovered that one of the best known players from those early days was Lily Parr who is now also particularly celebrated as an LGBT pioneer and reputedly broke a man’s arm with a shot.

Dick, Kerr Ladies in 1921

Even when the war ended women’s football continued and on Boxing Day 1920 one of the most famous games to take place involved the Dick, Kerr Ladies as they played St. Helen’s Ladies at Goodison Park in front of 53 000 spectators. Also in 1920 a series of matches were played by Dick, Kerr Ladies against a French side both in England and in France.

However by 1921 the tide was turning with the main reason being that the women’s game was proving more popular than the men’s with many people believing that now the war was over traditional gender roles should be restored. Other accusations were levelled at the women’s game such as financial impropriety and perhaps most ironically of all that the game was damaging to the female form which was most galling given that it had been promoted at first as being beneficial to it.

No one team was singled out but by the time of the ban the Dick, Kerr Ladies were by far the most successful side in the land with their wins becoming increasingly heavily one sided. One accusation that can be levelled against them is that in signing the best available talent and being virtually semi-professional they became over dominant. However the main reason for the ban was male jealously of the women’s game and a desire to restore the perceived natural order of society.

The women’s game continued but as they could no longer play on FA affiliated grounds the huge interest that had been there simply dwindled away leaving this era of women’s football almost forgotten. I was intrigued to see a poster in a Hull museum advertising a game between two women’s teams in 1968 to raise money in the aftermath of the Triple Trawler disaster. It was played at the rugby league ground in Hull.

I first became aware of women’s football during the Women’s World Cup in 2011 through newspaper articles and TV spots. I was so enamoured by it that I decided to write a play which I’m delighted to say has received four productions, is published by Oberon Books and is currently being considered as a text by a GCSE examination board.

So I hope that I have captured some of the spirit and camaraderie that led those pioneering women to ignore and defy the prevailing social attitudes from both genders and prove most emphatically that they were wrong to dismiss football as Not a Game for Girls.

Benjamin Peel is a playwright and author of Not a Game for Girls.