Girls with balls

The secret history of women’s football

Tim Tate, John Blake Publishing, 288 pages, hardback, £17.99

Boxing Day 1920, and 53,000 men, women and children pack inside Goodison Park, Liverpool. The crowds have come to watch two local rivals play a match for charity. But this is no ordinary charity fixture. Eleven of the players are international celebrities and their team is the biggest draw in British — and world — football.

Yet they are all full-time factory workers, and they are women. They are the ladies of Dick Kerr electrical works.

The male football establishment is terrified by them. With men away fighting from 1914-1918, most of the workers in the factories of northern England were women — and many factories had a ladies’ football team.

By 1920, ladies football was a major spectator sport. But away from the cheering terraces, professional men’s football viewed the mass popularity of women’s soccer with increasing alarm.

On 5 December 1921, the Football Association met behind closed doors. After a brief debate, it unanimously passed an urgent resolution: women’s football was banned from all professional football grounds.

Dick Kerr Ladies did not give in, playing their matches on parkland with thousands of spectators turning up to watch. But constant pressure from the FA meant that one by one, teams began to fold. It would take until 1971 for the FA to lift its ban.

Reviews contributed by the Bookmarks socialist bookshop. Order online at www.bookmarksbookshop.co.uk