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The final of the IX Women’s World Cup will be decided at Wangal-Sydney’s Accor Stadium on 20th August. With the success of the tournament and a number of the countries in contention reaching deeper into the tournament than they have ever been before, the women’s “world game” has never been more popular. The first World Cup for women occurred only relatively recently – in 1991, all of sixty-one years after the men’s football World Cup was first held. This might suggest to some that women and girls came to the round ball game much, much later than their male counterparts?
This would be a wrong perception however as females took to football with enthusiasm early on. The first recorded game between women took place, in the sport’s country of origin England, in 1895 (although some soccer historians date the first women’s game occurring in 1881)…a Northern side thumped a Southern side 7–1! By the time World War 1 ended women were playing football in big numbers and at the top club level with considerable prowess. And matches could be extremely well attended, even by men’s standards. A 1920 match involving the elite side Dick, Kerr Ladies FC and St Helens Ladies drew in excess of 50,000 spectators.
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| Dick, Kerr FC |
All of these was with no help from the English FA (Football Association), in fact in that formative stage of women’s football, the FA did everything it could to actively discourage its development. In 1902 it banned mixed-sex matches and it moved to prevent the women’s clubs from using FA-affiliated grounds for their matches. In 1921 just as the popularity of women’s football in England reached its very apex the FA applied the coup de grâce, imposing an official ban on women using any of the Association’s stadiums. The ban stayed firmly in place until 1971, coincidentally the year the first recognised women’s international was played (France v Netherlands)§.
As mentioned earlier women didn’t get their first FIFA-sanctioned World Cup until 1991, but there were several sort of “trial” tournaments loosely billed as “women’s world cups”. The earliest of these “little world cups”, 1970 (in Italy) and 1971 (in Mexico)—both won by a Danish club side—were notable (ie, notorious) for attempts by (male) football federations to sabotage or hinder them.
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§ although recognition of its international status by FIFA was not given until many years later, the familiar pattern of justice delayed for the women’s game again
