Women's football: They were first belles of the ball

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The rise of women’s football is sometimes regarded as a recent trend. But, in fact, the sport enjoyed an early heyday many years ago. Here Peter Seddon recounts the background to the occasion, in 1921, when a team billed “the best in the world” played at Derby County’s Baseball Ground.

An aerial view of the Baseball Ground in 1921

SOME extremely talented sides have appeared at Derby County’s Baseball Ground in its long and illustrious history – Real Madrid, Benfica, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea to name but a few.

But could any of them justly have billed themselves “the best team in the world”? In truth no, but one team did fit the bill – a side named Dick Kerr’s Ladies, who were the main attraction at the Baseball Ground on Wednesday August 31, 1921.

It was the day the fair sex proved to a sceptical football town that they really could play the game.

In a historical context, the match was made possible in light of a desire long held by women to play a game traditionally associated with men.

Records linking women and football go back many centuries. In 1586, the poet Sir Philip Sidney penned the iconic lines which many a girl since has sought to uphold: “A time there is for all, my mother often says, when she with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays.”

Some of the earliest records of women’s football can be traced back to the Highland region of Scotland during the 18th century, where the game was a form of folk football linked to local marriage customs.

Single women would play married women, while prospective husbands looked on hoping to select a bride from the singles’ ranks.

Social historians believe that such games were emulated elsewhere – Derbyshire no doubt had its equivalent.

But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that ladies first took to the now familiar organised version of the game known as association football.

The first official match in England was played at the ground of Crouch End Athletic, London, on March 23, 1895, between teams of middle and upper-class schoolgirls representing the North versus the South.

Its organiser was Miss Janetta “Nettie” Honeyball, secretary of the newly-formed British Ladies Football Club, who told all who would listen (not many men!) that “football is a manly game which can be womanly as well”.

Honeyball’s efforts had only a fleeting effect for, in its first incarnation, ladies’ football was perceived at best as a mere novelty and at worst, as one critic labelled it, “an excrescence of the worst kind”.

So, the game wasn’t widely taken up. And, as for local links, it seems likely that not a single ladies’ match took place in Derbyshire before the First World War. But that conflict changed everything.

With thousands of men away at war, women were, for the first time, widely employed in the heavier factory jobs, especially munitions work.

That led to their employers encouraging them to maintain their strength and fitness by following so-called “manly” sports.

For countless factory girls that manifested itself in membership of a works ladies’ football team.

And so it came about that organised ladies’ football was first widely played.

By the time the Dick Kerr’s side arrived in Derby in August 1921 they were a celebrated outfit.

They were formed in 1917 as the works team to the Dick Kerr and Co Ltd munitions factory in Preston, named after the company founders W B Dick and John Kerr, both Scots from Kilmarnock.

Adopting the black and white stripes of Newcastle United, the ladies made rapid progress and soon established a routine of playing games for charity, raising thousands of pounds for good causes.

Many of their games were played on Football League grounds, attracting phenomenal crowds. Their biggest was at Everton’s Goodison Park, on Boxing Day 1920, when their game against St Helen’s Ladies was watched by a staggering 53,000 – with 10,000 more locked out!

All opposition fell in their wake, including teams abroad, hence the “World Champion” tag.

Derby certainly had no team to match them, for there was no ladies’ team in the town at all.

Instead, the opposition at the Baseball Ground was Coventry City Ladies, who were duly brushed aside 3-0.

Derby’s mayor, Alderman Dr R Laurie, graciously kicked off the match and all proceeds, after expenses, were in aid of the Hospital Day Fund.

A crowd recorded as 15,000 generated gate receipts of £600.

Scepticism had been rife before the game. The Derby Daily Telegraph said: “Their efforts may be encouraged since they play for charity, but ladies’ football will never be more than a novelty.”

Derby County supporters were of similar mind, for laughter and ribald comments characterised the opening minutes.

But once they saw that the Preston girls had mastered the rudiments of play, the crowd settled to enjoy a proper game.

Centre-forward Florrie Redford bagged a brace, but the star attraction was the beanpole inside-right Lily Parr, an impoverished girl who joined the Dick Kerr team when she was 14 and carried on playing to the age of 46, scoring almost 1,000 goals in the process.

After the game, all present agreed the spectacle had been better than expected and when the signed ball was auctioned off, as was the usual custom, it went to Mr E Maycock for 11 and a half guineas – might his prize yet lurk in a Derby attic?

Dick Kerr’s appearance at Derby was just one of 67 games the team played for charity in 1921, before an aggregate crowd of 900,000.

From such a high point, ladies’ football was poised to make ever-greater strides. But then came a bombshell.

On December 6, 1921, the Football Association banned ladies’ football from the grounds of all FA member clubs.

The official reason was put down to “misappropriation of charitable funds”, but the ladies believed the FA’s motive was more sinister – that crusty male committee members simply decided enough was enough, deeming football “unsuitable as a serious exercise for women”.

The Dick Kerr’s team carried on but were confined to playing abroad or at local level and ladies’ football entered a rapid decline.

Teams did play from the 1930s to the 1950s but the game was essentially a sub-culture associated with joke matches or the tomboy breed.

Only in 1969, four years after Dick Kerr’s finally folded, was the Women’s Football Association formed, interest having been boosted by England’s 1966 World Cup triumph.

The FA officially recognised their female counterparts in 1971 but, remarkably, it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the ban on women playing on League pitches was fully lifted.

Derby County Ladies now boast a highly-organised and flourishing club, with teams at all age levels.

But their formation came only after a long journey. In 1921, having witnessed Dick Kerr’s in action, a group of girls wrote to Steve Bloomer requesting help in setting up a Derby County ladies’ side.

Bloomer made the right noises but nothing permanent transpired.

In 1970, a team named Hector’s Edition was formed, loosely affiliated to the Rams and named in honour of Kevin Hector.

They trained and played on Markeaton Park and their team picture even appeared in Goal magazine, but the side soon folded once initial enthusiasm had waned.

Finally, by 1992, under the guidance of player-coach Sheila Rollinson, a Draycott teacher, Derby had established a ladies’ team officially attached to Derby County.

They have progressed from strength to strength, as has the women’s game as a whole.

More than two million girls in Britain now play football at school. There is a flourishing national league, FA Cup, countless local sides and high-profile European Championship and World Cup tournaments. While the Dick Kerr’s Ladies take much credit for pioneering the trend, the 1920s editor of the Derby Daily Telegraph might well be eating his words from beyond the grave: “Ladies’ football will never be more than a novelty.”