Mary, Queen of Scots, wrote about football in her diary. In fact, the world’s oldest football was found in her belongings. Did she play? Most likely not. But she most certainly watched. So, when did women first pick up the ball and start playing? 

Shrove Tuesday, 23rd February, 1773: 

‘’The game involved married gentlemen playing against bachelors in Walton, a village in Yorkshire. After more than an hour’s struggle, with much pushing to the ground and several broken shins, the married men were in trouble. Until, that is, a bold woman “seeing her husband hard press’d, entered the field to his assistance”. Instead of being intimidated by the “superior strength” of her opponent she, “like a true Amazon… pursued the ball, and soon determined the victory”.

Whilst this story entertained me, it’s worth noting that women’s football roots are strikingly dissimilar to mens in the sense that it was upper and middle class women that pushed and funded British Ladies Football Club – formed in 1894. The founders, Nettie Honeyball and Lady Florence Dixie, wanted to turn middle class young women into professional footballers. They spent two seasons travelling England, playing matches across the country that drew crowds of 10,000. I am not shocked that this is the case, as often working class women’s lives were shaped by hardship, family life, and work. They would have not had the means to travel and go to matches, or time to train. 

Ms Dixie remarked that “the girls should enter into the spirit of the game with heart and soul.”

North London women’s side – 23rd March, 1885. Nettie Honeyball is second from the left in the top row.

These women were often ridiculed by the papers, dehumanised and looked down on. Sentiments that were expressed then, are often also expressed to shame the women footballers of today. I won’t share the remarks, as I find them distasteful. The women’s football clubs fizzled out. 

However, their lukewarm success was picked up by football clubs, in 1885, they started admitting women to spectate matches for free (to hopefully calm the crowds). This scheme was so successful that women had to pay full price to attend matches by the late 1880s. 

During the first world war, women working in the factories picked up football by playing games during their lunch breaks. This became so popular amongst the players – munitions factories started a league playing matches between themselves. The Prime Minister at the time, David Lloyd George, encouraged these matches as the image of women being strong, capable and able to do ‘men’s work’ was paramount to the war effort. 

Women’s football started to become popular – so popular, in fact, that teams began to play on the football grounds that had been left alone during the war. The teams played for charity, to raise money for injured servicemen. In fact, they were so popular, they started playing international charity matches. On Boxing Day, 1920, Dick Kerr Ladies played St Helen Ladies at Goodison Park in Liverpool, drawing a crowd of 53,000 spectators. 

In 1921, the England FA banned women’s football. Alice Barlow, player for Dick Kerr FC speculated that “we could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men and our bigger gates were for charity.” 

Despite the ban and stunting of women’s sports and football play, women still persisted who shared the love of the beautiful game. I recently watched a documentary about Bobby and Jack Charlton from a BBC archive. There was a real focus on their mother, Cissie Charlton, who I found absolutely fascinating. Her two sons won the world cup for England in 1966. She cultivated a love for the sport with her children, and came from a mining and football family. This is what she had to say about her relationship with football: 

“I was a rough-and-tumble tomboy with no time for girls’ toys or girls’ games. Lads’ games played on lads’ terms and lads’ territory — that was what I wanted. And why shouldn’t I? I could kick a pig’s-bladder football just as far and just as straight as any boy. I could run as fast and I could punch as hard as well…

… But in spite of my family background and my love of the game, I was born a woman and that little twist of fate decided there was one member of the Milburn clan who would not have a career in football. Daughter, wife and mother would be my role in life….

…. I loved sport at school, although the only games on offer were netball for the girls and football for the boys”.

“Football was in my blood and it would not be denied.  The language, the history, the tactics and the personalities of the game were part of my upbringing and as familiar to me as to any man. So there was no way that I would ever be content as the `little woman at home’ who placidly listens while her menfolk talk about what happened on the pitch or the terraces. I wanted more than that. I needed to be there, I needed to be part of it.  Whether it was on the terraces of Wembley, or the sidelines of a  miners’ welfare ground watching two local teams play – or even chasing up and down a school pitch with a team of tots. That, for the past seventy six years, is where I have wanted to be. That has been my goal!” Quote here 

Cissie genders sports into ‘girls’ games and ‘boys’ games, here. I found it interesting that, since her schooling in the 1910s and 1920s – not much has changed for girls sports in schools. 

Girls were not permitted to play football in my school – it was the sport for boys. Girls played netball. Boys played basketball, cricket and football. If you played football with the boys, you were a social pariah – a tomboy, othered from the concept of being a girl or woman. After year 9 – it was impossible to play football even if you wanted to – you were directed to either rounders or badminton. 

She talks about a need to be part of the action, not content with the gender roles that have been constricted upon her. No doubt she loved her children very much, but why should she have to give up her love of football in order to love her children and husband? At the age of 73, Cissie still coached her local children’s football team. 

I never thought of women playing professional football until I happened upon watching a match on TV – it had literally never crossed my mind until I was watching it with my own eyes. I’d seen women competing in tennis, in the Olympics, swimming, but I had never seen professional women football players until 2018. 

The first time I had ever even seen a woman on a football pitch was unfortunately Delia Smith’s famous Norwich City rant: ‘Where are you?’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_8JLkwzpd0 

Women and Football part 2: 2018 – A shift 

Nearly 100 years since the FA banned women’s football, it seemed to be making a comeback. The Women’s Super League (WSL) became fully professional and established. Growing investment, growing salaries, and growing interest saw a shift in culture. We now have 3.4 million women playing football in England. 

Women fans are estimated to make up 26% of fans at Premier League matches and 30% of fans who follow or watch the Premier League on TV or online (Pope, 2017; Global Web Index, 2019). Women can now have careers as professional footballers, and can have international renown – like Marta or Sam Kerr. 

The lionesses (England women’s team) became European champions in 2022 (as I watched on from the stands, alongside 87,192 other people, filled with emotion). I felt a shift in that moment. The tournament left grassroots legacies – with attendance, social media and engagement records. There were over 416,000 opportunities created across schools and clubs in England in response to the women’s teams success. Manchester United women’s season tickets sold out almost immediately after the tournament. There were creations of podcasts, magazines and even a bidding war for showing the WSL. With women’s teams having many openly LGBT+ players, the success of the tournament shifted the public’s attitude to LGBT players and positively contributed to more positive attitudes to LGBT people in sports. 

I wonder what Cissie Busby would think of the five mothers who played for the Icelandic national team in the WEURO 2022 tournament. 

This success hasn’t been without a significant backlash to women entering what is traditionally a men’s domain. 

Emma Shiels – Teaching, Learning and Student Experience Coordinator (Project and Events), Directorate of Student Experience

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