25 March 1895
The ladies’ football match: Crouch End Athletic Ground hosts a match between North and South teams of women footballers.
16 October 1968
Women footballers fight for ‘respectability’.
11 November 1969
FA to think again about women footballers.
First ‘foul’ lady
28 July 1971
by Dennis Barker
It was the sort of situation in which even the Archangel Gabriel might have said “Blow it!” The rules of the football tournament said that if the scores were equal, the result would be decided on corners. With the score nil-nil, the corners one-all and only five minutes to go, the goalie fielded the ball near the byline and the referee awarded a corner to the other side.
“The ball didn’t go over the bloody line, Ref!” said the goalie, Eileen Bourne, aged 20, of the Brighton Post Office Ladies Football Team who, on the spot, became the first lady footballer in Sussex to be sent off for swearing at a referee.
Last night, she was said to be still “too upset” to talk about the incident, but the referee, Mr Charles Adams, a builder, said firmly: “I don’t stand swearing from anybody, male or female. Once a referee lets someone swear at him he loses control of the game.” The biggest concession Mr Adams was prepared to make was a promise not to report the matter. “The sending off was sufficient punishment,” he said.
28 May 1978
The state of women’s football in 1978: ‘the manager of one teamI played for dated all the girls, then when he was fed up with us, he left’.
19 March 2000
Women’s football to turn pro: The FA will use its muscle to put the UK’s fastest growing sport in the public eye by ensuring that broadcasters screen games.
28 July 2001
Women’s football is fastest growing sport.
4 December 2003
Whistle while you work: the obstacles facing the growing number of female referees.
6 February 2004
Is sex appeal the way to sell women’s football? First Fifa suggested hotpants. Now the FA is sending out glossy brochures of the England team all dolled up.
22 November 2014
Women’s football has a rich tradition and heritage in Britain but its story, one that informs the modern game, is long neglected.
3 August 2016
The 20 greatest female football players of all time.
18 February 2018
Women’s football takes centre stage in museum exhibition.
15 July 2018
Final whistle: women call time on boring, ugly football kits. ‘A totally different fit’ – how female footballers finally got their own kits.
16 April 2019
Feelgood glow in women’s football does not extend to finances: Women’s Super League clubs are struggling to be profitable.
19 May 2019
Women’s football: how girls are moving the goalposts. Five players who have shaped the game.
