When women tired men in football and filled the stadium with fans

Future generations would call this tragedy the first world war, but at that meal there was more than a war. A devastating conflict requiring men and boys to wear heavy uniforms and boots, pick up a gun, and march on. “The war that will bring an end to all the <x1) wars was the appeal given to 70 million people; five million would be exclusively from the United Kingdom, 700 thousand of whom would never return to Yorkshire, Kent, Oxford, Manchester, London, and cities and countless villages. Over 1.5 million returned but were injured and traumad.

In Men's Shoes

At the beginning of the 20th century, most women were housewives. True, Suffragette's movement was powerful and devoted, but she engaged in great resistance and remained just a good initiative. Her most radical arm was ready to fight at any cost, and some members would even shock as far as bombs would come, writes Periscope. The government had hit them very badly and had imprisoned them.

However, as soon as the men had gone to the holes in the war, their tactics had been changed. In order to fight for their rights, women had to have a place. So they decided to contribute to the war by taking the roles of men abandoned by their brothers and husbands who were marching across Europe. Emmelyn Panhurst, leader of the Sufragist Movement, insisted that once women took on men's duties, politicians would have no other argument to prevent them from voting.

Deldale Stadium

Thousands of women started applying for work as trams or salesmen; others wanted to work in mines and in distributing milk and mail. The only job they weren't allowed to do was drive trains. 1.5 million women for the first time in their lives were doing wage jobs. Millions of others decided to volunteer, welcome refugees, manage bars, and cantinas.

The government encouraged these efforts and ordered employers to hire women [not only sfragist, of course] as replacement for recruited men. This initiative helped to speed up the emergency process.

The most difficult job awaiting the women's new workforce was the filling of factories. Every day, women had to work among dangerous explosives to produce weapons missiles for the army. In these factories, especially at the beginning of the war, productivity and efficiency were too vital. Working 12 hours a day was a regular job.

And since women were doing everything the men had done before recruiting, the women of the factories decided that they could play football as well. The most popular and famous football club in women's football history, which should still be considered a reference point for everyone else, was formed at Dick's ammunition factory, Kerr & Co. The city of Preston.

Legend has it that during the factory's low - production period in October 1917, women would spontaneously join teenage boys to play soccer during their lunch pauses or tea pauses. The factory's strippers were used as improvised goals. Women usually played against men [or, rather, women against boys]. When the women won, they took chocolates, and when the boys won, they were rewarded with a pack of Woodby cigarettes. This is the club founding myth. Football was widely promoted as a healthy activity not only in the factory mentioned but also in others.

When the field belonged to women

Before Serbian Gavrilo Princip fired Browning at the Franz Ferdinand Archduke in Sarajevo, women were told football is not for you. Some people were offended by the idea that women, like men, would discover their feet in public, not to mention the races that they were supposed to run in men's clothes. The first football club in England was founded by Netie Honeyball, or at least so it became known. Nettie had never discovered her real name... the most likely because she didn't want to make trouble for her family... as Lady Florence Dixie, president of Britain's first female club. Lady Dixie was a strong student of gender equality, enthusiastic of women's and martial arts sports.

Chocolate Points

Dick factory yard, Kerr & Co. No women's victories. In fact, they had won more than boys had earned. Alfred Frankland, one of the factory's administrative staff, saw these matches from his office's windows. It was Frankland that encouraged those women to establish a real football club. Instead of throwing the ball on the strippers ' shelves to score goals, they could now play a real soccer field.

Frankenstein was told he would become their manager and coach. In other factories, women were also establishing their teams, so Frankland and arranged a match with workers from the Arundel factory, Coulhard & Co. Revenues from this match had gone to charity and had helped wounded soldiers in the hospital.

The other factory was from Preston. The match between the Frankland team and this factory was held at the Deepdale Stadium, which was owned by the famous English team Preton North End [reparting in the English Championship] -- the first team to have won the FA Cup.

Frankland's team had won 4-0 on Christmas Day in 1917. It had been the first match held in Deepdale since before the war, and it was drawn by a crowd of over 10,000 people.

Women's first football stars were factory workers. Florie Redford, a woman with a changed and blonde face, had scored goals indefinitely. She had started playing soccer with her brothers, like her schoolmate and workmate Alice Kel.

Florie Redford

Then came the extra money for these women.

Women who worked at ammunition factories in Britain were known as Municions. Between 1917 and 1918, women's teams filling factories in the Newcastle region competed for silver medals in the cup called the Municone Cup. Football had become popular among women in many parts of England and Scotland.

Women drive home

When the war came to an end, the men marched into their homeland and homes, and finally they had to remove their weapons from their arms and remove the heavy boots of war. The movement of women in Britain proved to be less successful than that Emmeline Panhurst had hoped for and other sulfragist activists. Most of the women who found work during the war and who were called in a different way as the invisible army” from the press of that time left. They were to return to their homes, their husbands. And nobody ate dicks that many of them had no husband to return to.

On February 6, 1918, the British Parliament passed a popular act granting all men the right to vote over 21 years of age, regardless of income level. Previously, only those over 30 years of age and who met certain financial requirements were entitled to it. The vote was also granted to women, although under certain conditions: they should be over 30 years old and own a house or flat worth at least 5 pounds [the 300 euro equivalent today], or have a husband. Women were to wait another 10 years before they were granted the full right to vote. However, the 1918 Parliamentary Act was a crucial moment, and the girls from Dick, Kerr and other factories/robe football without the thread of suspicion that played their part in it.

This is Albanian football statue, Kosovar Aslan

After the war that failed spectacularly ended all wars, the popularity of women in football did not fade, however; the opposite. Crowds were flying to the tribuna to see Dick's wives, Kerrés playing soccer [should mention that the factory in question, unlike other factories, had not fired women workers after the end of the war]. Emancipation was growing, and it is impossible to imagine that the crowd of spectators came just to see the uncovered thighs of women. However, it should be noted that sports journalists often commented on the players' abilities and talents.

Women's fights remained charity events. Revenues were donated to war veterans who had suffered injuries or who had received psychological trauma. In September 1919, the match between Dick factory, Kerrís and Newcastle United Women's team in St. James Park drew a crowd of 35 thousand. The sum of the 70 thousand euros collected was immediately granted to charity.

When Excellence Meets Strength

In 1920, Frankland invited France's national women's team to play against Dick's team, Kerrés, for a series of matches.

Before I passed footballers along La Manche, their dedicated leader Alice Milliat gave him some interviews for French Daily Mail correspondents, hoping that the initiative would gain interest and attract fans. When the French team had arrived in Dover, Mrs. Milliat was shocked by all the crowd of journalists waiting for them. To her surprise on the next day, the visit had been made central news in most major newspapers. The French team had then taken the train to Preton, where they were welcomed by a musical band at the hand of the handbill management.

Dick's wives, Kerrés

The first match was played at the Deepdale Stadium in Preston. English factory women had won over French women with a score of 2-0. The match was seen by 25 thousand people. The next day they played Stockport. This time again, the women of the English factory won 5-2. Then they went to play in Blackpool, where the French team managed to score 1-1.

All these matches were like heat before the biggest event: a match at London's Stamford Bridge Stadium [stadium of the team known Chelsea]. The match was promoted as a confrontation between two national teams of women with two drab different styles: the fine and elegant French women against Lancashire's strong and long-standing women. According to the press, Milliat's team had entered the field in a regular row, holding sides under national anthem. Marseille. The girls from the Preston factory on the other side had gone into the field like an angry mob.

The French team had won 2-1 causing Dick, Kerrís the first defeat in two years.

This loss had not discouraged women from the Dick factory, Kerrés. Shortly afterward they had played for the first time in football history in the light of projectors. Their coach Frankland had asked Winston Churchill, then minister of war, to borrow two military producers to the stadium.

53 thousand spectators attended that match. The media had reported that another 14 thousand viewers had tried to buy tickets but that são were out. This is the record for a fight in women's football that hasn't broken today.

The team from the factory in question was later invited to a rimech in Paris. This time, they were wearing the undergarments of England's national team. The match was attended by 22 thousand people. The Referee had interrupted the match five minutes earlier when the score was 1-1 after angry fans were thrown into the field. During this match, a scandalous photograph was fired, featuring the captains of national teams greeting each other with a passionate smile on his lips.

Dick's greatest star, Kerrés, was Lily Parr, who, according to her team's friends, <x0fold alcohol, smoked cigarettes and cursed everyone as if he were a man”. Parr was about love with another woman named Mary and didn't even try to hide it. And besides, she had a very strong shutter. On one occasion, a doorman from the men's team said that she would not go out to defeat her by the penalty. The Invisible Shut had broken his hand.

She had scored more than a thousand goals by 1951 at the end of her career.

Ban

By 1921 the English football federation had banned women from playing soccer in all the stadiums that belonged to it. There are many official explanations, but there are also speculation theories about the hidden reasons for such a terrible decision. The idea that women were running after the ball only with the dance was a source of rage for many people. But the English Football Federation was also deeply concerned that women's football was stealing the popularity of men's football.

Conservators of this federation had also come to this decision with the help of medical authorities who had found that “was an inappropriate game for women” and could harm physically.

There were also ideas that post-war elites in Britain were afraid of the financial assistance women football were giving to protest miners and the growing Bolsevistic idea across the country. The women's football was perceived as revolutionary and extremely dangerous. There were political reasons behind its closure. Women's football grew too much and became too popular, too fast, and too oriented towards the poor class. And he was too bright. It scared people out,” explains the author of a documentary on the matter.

So women's football practically disappeared. Dick, Kerrés had to play football stadiums. For a time, they succeeded in gathering large crowds again that still, but marginalisation and all support, caused the team to faint. They succeeded, however, in becoming unofficial world champions representing the English, but then changed ownership of the factory and everything went to wool.

The club was officially closed only in 1965.

Today, women's football is becoming more and more popular, but the huge void that separates it from men's sport seems too deep to disappear soon.