In January 1970, the Football Association’s (FA) ban on women’s football — imposed in December 1921 on the premise that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged” — came to an end, with the FA committee agreeing that “ladies’ football should no longer be… classed as unaffiliated football”.
GO DEEPER
When the FA decided to ban women’s football for 50 years
The Women’s Football Association (WFA), set up in 1969, ran the incipient women’s game, with the Women’s FA Cup becoming the showpiece calendar event as a national league was not founded until 1991.
The WFA continued to be in charge until 1992, when the FA took over the running of women’s football. However, little is known about the period, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, when women’s football was self-governing.
The names of trailblazer Lily Parr, who was widely considered the greatest striker of her generation, and the Dick, Kerr Ladies, who attracted crowds of over 50,000 fans in 1920, have become familiar to women’s football fans over the years.
Dick, Kerr Ladies during their 1922 North American tour (Gircke/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
But the story of Southampton’s Pat Chapman, the 1978 FA Cup final record goalscorer,…
