Inside the ‘secret World Cup’ where England squad were blacklisted and ‘no one wanted to know’

COPA 71 is the story of women’s football miles away from the one we know today.

The rise of the WSL and Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses have seen the likes of Chloe Kelly, Leah Williamson and Mary Earps become household names.

But back in 1971, with women’s football banned by the FA, England’s Lionesses were forced to compete in a women’s World Cup in secret.

For years, nothing was known about the event in Mexico, with the FA moving to ban all the women involved in the tournament from football and the press not being interested in covering it.

But the story of the tournament is about to have a spotlight shone on it thanks to a new documentary produced by Venus and Serena Williams called Copa 71.

In it, we find out how a 60-year-old bus conductor from Luton named Harry Batt assembled an England team to compete in the secret tournament.

Batt found players by scouting playing fields and parks, and managed to cobble together 14 talented female players to fly to the tournament in Mexico.

While there was zilch about it in the UK press at the time, the women who played in the tournament spoke about the experience to the Sunday Times.

Trudy McAffrey, 69, Carol Wilson, 72, and Chris Lockwood, 67, said they were treated like celebrities in Mexico – with paparazzi following their every move and the team being invited to lavish parties at foreign embassies.

Lockwood spoke of how the tournament energised Mexico and described “all the young kids wanting autographs.”

Although England were knocked out at the group stage it did not put a dampener on the squad’s experience, with Lockwood saying: “At the end, two children came with a plaque drawn in crayons that said, ‘You might have lost the game, but you’ve won the heart of Mexico.”

Rather than fly home, the Lionesses were invited to stay in Mexico until the final “We were invited to a cocktail party in the British Embassy — it was a grand affair,” says Wilson, who was 19 and able to drink. “I remember seeing Leah [Caleb, the youngest member of the squad] reaching for the drinks tray — she was only 13!”

But the story takes a sad turn when McAffrey described the squad “coming home to a nothingness” when they returned to England.

“Only a few weeks before, we had been playing football at a packed-out stadium,” she said. “No one wanted to know. It was bizarre.”

The FA blacklisted manager Harry Batt for life and all the women were handed bans ranging between three months and 12 from playing football.

The shame of being shunned by the FA led to the squad losing touch. “I think because it was banned, it made it feel like we did something wrong,” McCaffery says. “Not that long ago, I came close to just chucking my stuff [souvenirs from the tournament] away. I thought, who’s interested in this? It doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”

It wasn’t until 47 years later that the squad were reunited after Lockwood, McCaffery and Wilson went on BBC Radio 4 and The One Show to launch a call-out to reunite the squad.

The documentary also sees women from the Danish, Mexican and Italian teams interviewed, with many of them needing a lot of convincing to talk on the record.

Co-director of Copa 71, Rachel Ramsay said: “The women are traumatised. The shame that they were made to feel was so intense. Many of them hadn’t even told their families they’d taken part.”

As well as shining a light on the England team, the documentary highlights just how much the development of women’s football was stilted by bans on women playing football across multiple countries.

With national teams becoming celebrities in Mexico, the final at the Azteca was a sell-out, attended by 112,500 spectators.

Despite this being the highest ever attendance recorded for a women’s football game, FIFA only recently officially acknowledged this due to the tournament not being officially sanctioned.

One of the members of the England squad, Jan Emms, the mother of badminton star Gail told the Sun last year that she was full of joy to see England’s Lionesses make the final of the women’s World Cup, this time in one sanctioned by FIFA.

She said: “This World Cup final is the ultimate vindication of what we did.”

“All 14 of us are still alive and able to see this happen. We never in our wildest dreams thought that an England women’s team would get to a World Cup final.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk