The 1972 match that put the Lionesses on the road to Wembley (and ended 50 years of hurt)

JUST 400 people paid 20p each to file through the turnstiles at a kids’ foot­ball ground near Glasgow to see history being made.

Exactly 50 years ago, England’s women footballers played their first ever international with the official backing of the game’s governing body.

In that debut game against Scotland at the Ravenscraig Stadium in Greenock, England won 3-2 and set off on the long road that has led the Lionesses to Sunday’s Euros final at Wembley.

Although striker Pat Davies scored twice to wipe out Scotland’s 2-1 lead, the final score was almost irrelevant.

What DID matter that Saturday afternoon in November 1972 was that this game signalled the end of half a century of hurt for women who had been BANNED from playing football.

A hundred years ago, most UK towns and cities had women’s football teams and many of those female players were international superstars.

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On Boxing Day morning of 1920 a capacity crowd of 53,000 crammed into Goodison Park, Liverpool, to watch two of the country’s most exciting women’s teams play a charity match to raise money for wounded war veterans.

‘ABSOLUTE OUTCRY’

That record-breaking crowd was far bigger than Liverpool or Everton men’s teams were getting — and the Football Association was worried.

Former women’s footballer Gail Newsham, 69, of Preston, Lancs, says: “That match sent shock waves through the football establishment.

“Despite being factory workers, one of those women’s teams — Dick, Kerr Ladies from Preston — played 67 games of football in a year and almost 900,000 people came to watch them.

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“Back then women players were the superstars of the day because they played exciting football.

“Fans wanted to be pictured with them and get their autographs, the selfies of that time.”

Then, almost a year after that famous Boxing Day match, the game’s ruling body, the FA, banned women from playing on any grounds operated by the Football League.

Gail says: “Imagine saying to today’s incredible Lionesses after Sunday’s game at Wembley, ‘right that’s it you’re not playing anymore. You’re banned’.

“Whatever you’d done, it didn’t matter. Nobody was going to care or remember. That’s what happened to those famous female footballers.

“If the same thing happened today there would be an absolute outcry. But back in 1921 life was very different for women. What drives me mad is the injustice of it.”

It had all been so different, when four years earlier the matron of a military hospital asked women workers at William Dick and John Kerr’s munitions factory in Preston to raise money for veterans with a Christmas concert.

The factory girls had a better idea — a charity football match against women from a nearby foundry.

Incredibly 10,000 fans turned up at Preston North End’s Deepdale ground to see Dick, Kerr Ladies beat Arundel Coulthard Foundry and raise the equivalent of £50,000 for wounded soldiers. It was the start of an amazing run of 200 games without defeat, as the women footballers took not only Britain but the world by storm — they even became the unofficial England team.

Gail tracked down former players and fans for her book about the Dick, Kerr Ladies Team, In A League Of Their Own.

Imagine saying to today’s incredible Lionesses after Sunday’s game at Wembley, ‘right that’s it you’re not playing anymore. You’re banned’.

Gail Newsham

She says: “I met two elderly gentlemen who had seen the Dick, Kerr Ladies play — one during the general strike and the other remembers seeing a night match by search light in 1920.

“They both told me it wasn’t about women running around in shorts or anything like that. They just wanted to see a good game of football.

“The most outstanding player was the team’s first captain, Alice Kell, who was a defender in the Bobby Moore mould and a great figurehead for the team. The women looked up to her.

“All those years later, that old man still remembered Alice Kell’s name.

“Florrie Redford was the centre forward and she was naturally gifted, could kick with either foot. She scored 170 goals in 1921.

“She was probably the most famous woman footballer of her generation.

“Everybody talks about Lily Parr but before her came Jenny Harris, a very small girl but a fantastic player. She could dribble from one end of the pitch to the other and score goals.

“Those women players would be absolute superstars today.”

But the Boxing Day game at Goodison Park sealed their fate.

The FA’s council ruled that football was “quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.”

Despite women playing soccer for years doctors on the FA’s payroll decided: “Football is a rough game and is more harmful for women than men.”

The most outstanding player was the team’s first captain, Alice Kell, who was a defender in the Bobby Moore mould and a great figurehead for the team. The women looked up to her.

Gail Newsham

Dr Elizabeth Sloan Chesser even said: “Women may receive injuries from which they may never recover.”

Banned from playing at league stadiums, women’s teams were reduced to doing so in parks and rugby grounds.

Gail says: “Rugby grounds opened their doors to them and they would play on pitches that the FA had no jurisdiction over. But the FA still kept rearing their ugly heads throughout the history — they would try to prevent games from going ahead.”

Dick, Kerr Ladies team owned their own ground and managed to continue playing until 1965. They even travelled to America to play and they won tournaments in Europe.

WASHED IN A POND

Watching Dick, Kerr Ladies in the early Sixties, legendary manager Sir Matt Busby described Val Walsh as one of the best players he had ever seen. He would have signed Val to play for Manchester United if she had been a man.

Other clubs like Heys from Bradford, Huddersfield Atlanta and Manchester Corinthians Ladies Foot­ball Club defied the ban on women’s football on FA-affiliated grounds.

Percy Ashley, a Bolton Wanderers scout, set up the Corinthians in 1949 so his deaf daughter, Doris, a gifted player, could play and socialise with other women.

Conditions were so primitive at their home ground in Fog Lane Park, Didsbury, that women players washed in a nearby duck pond because there was no running water in the unheated changing rooms.

But by touring Europe the team won more than 50 trophies by 1970, and raised £275,000 for charity.

Gail grew up playing football with boys in the street but was not allowed to play in matches until the FA lifted their ban in 1971.

She says: “When I first started, we used to play at a pitch where the changing room was an old chicken hut and there were panels missing so the wind and rain came in and the toilet was a rusty oil drum.

“But we didn’t mind. We’d play anywhere. We really did it for the love of the game.”

The year after Dick, Kerr Ladies team finally quit, England’s men won the World Cup in 1966, inspiring more women than ever to play.

In 1967, BBC worker Patricia Gregory was watching Spurs parade the FA Cup at Tottenham Town Hall and wondered why she had never seen girls playing football.

Unaware of the FA ruling on women playing football she founded the Women’s Football Association and five years later the ban was lifted – allowing that first ever official female international to happen.

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Gail says: “Here we are 50 years on and I believe the Lionesses can do it on Sunday. I can’t put into words how wonderful it will be.

“It’s like, we are picking up now where the Dick, Kerr Ladies left off in the 1920s.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk