Dan Snow's History Hit - When Football Banned Women

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

England’s historic Euro 2022 victory on Sunday night was the most watched TV programme of the year. It feels like it's the first time women's football is getting the attention it deserves. Well, a century ago, it was women who dominated the pitch, commanding crowds bigger than the men's games. But that changed on the 5th of December 1921 when the FA placed a complete ban on women playing professional football. That ban lasted 50 years.In this episode from our archive, celebrated broadcaster Clare Balding joins Dan to tell the story of the factory girls who took on the world, why they were banned and the legacy of that ban over 100 years on.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. On the 31st of July 2022, the England women's football team won Euro 22. They are champions of Europe. It is a massive result. It was a game attended by a record crowd, more people than ever watched any other European final, men or women. People on the night were keen to say this is a new dawn, the start of a golden age for women's football. But in fact, there's already been a golden age in women's football. In this podcast, which I have delved into the archive to draw out, I recorded years ago with Claire Balding, a national treasure, BBC broadcaster specialising in sport. And she told me about the time when men banned women's football

because it was too popular. During and after the First World War, women's football enjoyed enormous prominence within the UK, so much so that it was seen as a threat, and it was banned. This is an extraordinary story. So as always, as we're watching the world around us, the events unfolding, things happening, it's always good to have a dash of history to remind you what's gone before and how we got here. Here's Claire Balding. Enjoy. Claire Balding, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.

Now, this is a fascinating story. coming on the podcast. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me. Now, this is a fascinating story. Just briefly, at the outbreak of war in 1914, was there a male professional football soccer league here in the UK? Very good question. Whether it was fully professional by then, I rather doubt. In fact, I know it wasn't because I think one of the concerns about the women was that they were taking quite generous expenses so somebody like Lily Parr was actually closer to being a paid footballer than any of the men and I think that might have been part of the problem for the FA. Oh okay so well this is an amazing story in that case so in 1914 the outbreak of war men are all playing football and people are paying as soon as the factories are out on Saturday lunchtime everyone goes down and watches the big teams that we still know and

recognize today man united and arsenal that kind of stuff then what happens in 1940 not necessarily the big teams we recognize today but but certainly big teams i mean corinthian casuals would have been one of the bigger ones which was is still actually an amateur side and that there are some that they didn't want. I mean, as you're probably aware, there was a big break in rugby union when the northern rugby union clubs wanted to go professional

because working-class men could not afford to take time off to play rugby. And people were charging for tickets. And the league was making money, but the players were not allowed to. so they did this single broken time payment and essentially it led to the rugby league forming its own association and splitting from rugby union football did not want that to happen and they had a real problem they were beginning to have problems as well with some quite a lot of men not being able to afford

to give up time to play football. But they wanted to keep control of it and if it was going to go professional, they wanted to still manage that under the auspices of the Football Association. Women's football, they didn't know what to do with because they didn't know how to control it. It had been set up sort of on an ad hoc basis, largely out of factories.

And quite a lot of the factories, whether they were munitions factories or whether it was round trees or Bourneville or whatever, were quite, they were very keen on sport as a way of keeping their men and women motivated and healthy and fit and working as a team. and healthy and fit and working as a team. So obviously in a situation where there weren't many men working in factories because most of them had gone to fight in the war, the women who took over those jobs were similarly, you know, needed motivation and wanted to be kept fit and healthy. And actually because they were doing quite strong physical jobs, they were naturally building up more muscle.

They were stronger women anyway and though the pictures if you look at the picture of the dick curl ladies i mean they're young you know fresh faced women but they're fit and healthy they look really well um and lily parr was this fantastic player who came in at 14 and was about six foot tall i I mean, she sort of looked like Garbine Mugurufe, you know, just won the women's title at Wimbledon. And she was a very, very good player and became good because they were doing quite a lot of training. And it's just an amazing thing because she probably

was getting a decent extra, you know, for expenses. She was certainly supplementing her income quite effectively whether she was working in the munitions factory or later working in a in a an asylum um local to to to that sort of St Helens Preston area what I don't understand is is when the men all went to war in 1914 did the women's league was it uh was it deliberately boosted because it gave people on the home front something to watch football? Or were they the only ones left playing and just slowly it grew organically and became a huge, huge attraction? I think it grew organically. And you're right, there was nothing else to watch in terms of competitive sport.

And I think in the beginning, probably as a curiosity, crowds went along. You don't keep going there as a curiosity. You might go once and you might, you know, you just don't, you wouldn't do it more than once. Certainly 53,000 of you wouldn't go to a match just as curiosity. And Everton being one of the older clubs, that was very much as is now. But their women's team was very good and it was the match against Everton at Goodison Park that got that massive crowd

and loads more people locked out of the grounds because they couldn't get them in and it's not long after that that the FA had the meeting and say this must stop so it had built up during the war but it was continuing afterwards and I think there were various things happening. One, the FA were frightened that this was the beginnings of a professional

league and they didn't want that. And they certainly didn't want that spreading to the men. Secondly, it was women and therefore it was considered that this wasn't quite right and this isn't what football was meant to be. Thirdly, and I do think this is fairly important, some women had the vote by this stage, but not all women and not working class women. These are large gatherings of people, male and female, watching women being strong and competitive and ambitious. They are not looking at women in, you know, fulfilling traditional domestic roles. And I think it was thought of as revolutionary.

And you will know better than me, Dan, what was happening around Europe at that time. And anything that sort of subverted traditional roles or was in any way kind of seen to be an uprising that they would be concerned about. And also, they didn't know how women would vote. And a little bit like the election we've just had, where I think there was a real fear of what would the young do if they did come out and vote, there was an assumption that all women would vote the

same way, which clearly we don't and probably didn't straight off. But some parties were better at trying to attract women who had never voted before than others. And one of the stories I heard was that the Bolshevik Party were very active around those football matches. And there was a worry that all women would suddenly join the Bolshevik Party. And this must not be allowed either. So there's a lot of different factors, none of which are recorded in the minutes of the FA meeting, which I've seen. The route they go down is this is a health risk. And women should should not be it's unfeminine and it's a health risk they shouldn't be allowed to be playing football which is completely contradictory given that they've

been working with tnt and munitions factories all through the first world war so it's you know completely hypocritical why do you think even when the men came back from the war and presumably those old clubs started up again the men's game started up again, why did the women's game prove so enduringly popular, even when the big names, if you like, came back into the sport in 1918, 1919? That's a really good question. I don't know, because having seen the footage I've seen, although technically they had improved hugely in the years they've been playing they weren't they wouldn't be up to a standard that you would you would admire you know just point back and say wow that's brilliant I mean Lily Parr was an outstanding player and there's a great story about her being challenged by a male footballer a goalkeeper who says well you won't get one past me and so she fires a shot at him. He tries to save it.

It goes in the net and he breaks his arm in the process. So there's a great deal of true stories about her, but I think there's a mythology that builds up as well, that she was outstanding and she probably could have held her place in a men's side if mixed football had been played then or if girls were allowed to train with boys. I think, i don't i don't know why they suddenly became almost more popular and it might have been because they were

the only ones that were being written about and the dick kerr ladies had by now become the unofficial england side and they were playing france so they were playing internationals um by the early 20s where the i don't think the men's side had got itself together again by then. And would have been, obviously, the clubs would have been severely damaged by the loss of young men. So I think probably a combination of the fact that they were being talked about, written about, and had been playing all that time, and that the men's game was rebuilding.

You listen to Dan Snow's history, we've got national treasure Claire Balding on talking about women's football. More coming up. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research.

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Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. It's amazing, Claire, isn't it, that whether it's women's sport, whether it's women on the battlefield, whatever it might be, is that you keep thinking this is a natural state of affairs. The men are all out playing professional sports. The women are only now achieving parity or something like parity but actually when you start looking back at history you realise extraordinary that there are examples in our past of women running a more successful football league for example than men it's just it's just incredible yeah and i think the sadness for me about the ban is that it lasted for so long. It lasted until 1971. It was a 50-year ban by the FA. Now, it's not that women's football wasn't allowed because that would have required an act of law. It was allowed. It just wasn't allowed on FA pitches. It wasn't allowed with FA officials or referees. There wasn't allowed to be an official league.

So they had to start again or start from the beginning. And there was an association of the women's FA was an association that was set up. But they took a long, it has been a long, long battle where it shouldn't have been a fight at all to get acceptance from the Football Association. Now they've announced this year, they've announced a massive increase in funding to try and double participation in women's football. And they know they can because they've reached saturation point with the boys. There isn't a boy in this country, you know, in the UK that doesn't know that if he's good at football there are ways in which he can join an academy join a club there are you know everybody knows they can't

the girls don't know that they can so they don't select football they might select hockey which by the way was never banned despite the fact that it's a much more physically um vicious or violent sport than football that was never banned by any association um but took quite a long time those come into the olympics for women to be allowed to play hockey but anyway that's a different story the the the fa having not released that ban and not effectively supported women's football until relatively recently i think it's had incredible long-term effects and i'm out in holland now for the women's european championships in which england are i would say second favorites to win the title there is some coverage in the newspapers and actually there's quite a lot of coverage of this documentary which helps

but you still don't open the papers on a regular basis and get fair coverage of women's sports you just don't and that is one of the after give football's our most popular sport you look how much football's written about even in the off season about potential transfers about you know players health and fitness about unfortunately for them where players are holidaying as well but the women's game just doesn't have the same sponsorship the same support the same interest because it's not talked about as much and that's the thing that i hope will change it's definitely changing and has been in the last 10 years but i think in the next 10 years it needs to take a dramatic leap into the public consciousness we need to be talking about players clubs and international football an awful lot more than we are i was i hosted a 13 year old's birthday party the other

day my niece turned 13 and i was very. It wouldn't have happened in my generation. The girls, we were all camping out in the forest, and the girls were all brought football with them, and they were all passing to each other and doing tricks, and it was just the most natural thing in the world. And that just shows, it made me feel old, and it shows how times are changing. I mean, do you think you're one of the best broadcasters in the world,

I think, and certainly your expertise on sports is extraordinary. Do you feel that you've gone, in your lifetime or your career, you're going to go from a situation where women have been marginalised, you've been doing a lot of work on men's sports, perhaps in 20, 30 years' time it's going to be completely different? It must be very exciting for you. Yeah, it is exciting because I can feel it. You feel it already.

I went to my first Olympics in 1996, and the Olympic sports have definitely helped because in Britain, we are becoming more and more successful. And when they looked at funding, they knew they were missing opportunities at gold medals. And they're very commercial about it. You know, where can we win the medals? Oh, look, women's rowing, women's cycling, you know, women's hockey had actually always been popular. And that, I think, is a massive achievement to have won a gold medal in Rio up against countries who have been better funded that theirs is a really interesting one to study because that's about team ethic

and that's also about how to coach women and there's a really interesting chapter about it in a book called the talent lab which is about how we did better in Rio than we did in London in terms of winning medals. But I do think football is the most important of the lot because it is the one that is truly global and is such a huge business as well as a sport in Britain. And we have only entered football teams at a home game. So in London, there was a Great Britain men's and women's football team. It's a massively political hot potato, that one, because the leagues do not want, England's got them way over the Northern Ireland, don't want a British team that often because the argument is,

well, why don't you have a British team in the World Cup then? And they don't want that. But the FA have promised that there will be a women's team at the next Olympics so it's like women get a slightly different rule because the FA I don't know why but anyway I would accept it with open arms and just say good because it needs we need to have representation at the Olympics as well but the World Cup is getting bigger and bigger and you see the audiences particularly in america and japan growing for women's football and and i do think women's sport in general is getting far more respect but it's got to also be be available in schools and my question to you with the kids that

you had at the birthday party do they play football at school and if so then massive massive hooray yep well they did they go to school in southeast london there's a big girls football program that's for sure um claire are you uh well i've got you on the podcast you everyone will be very happy to hear that you're you're moving into history programming finally someone of your caliber can't be spend the whole time talking about sports that's good news are you a big are you a big lover of history i am a big lover of history? I am a big lover of history. And I am because my passion is sports. I'm always particularly interested at how sports can actually tell you as many stories as other forms of history. I've always found history a little bit war centric. And I don't myself find

the history of wars that entertaining or interesting, or I don't think it tells us much except about the mistakes that um you know alpha males have made over the years and saying right let's have a fight about it I find sports such a it's just a different way of looking at um periods in time but also the developments of countries and also gender equality. So if you take the Middle East, a place where women are still fighting for the right to be treated as equal human beings, are still fighting for the right to get the vote, there are definite moves in certain Middle Eastern countries to allow women to compete in sport. And I think that still now, as it was in the 1920s, as it was going back even further is a really important

marker of the visibility of strong women and I think sport allows women a sort of showcase and yes it's a harsh environment because you are judged on whether you win or you lose but it's also a very important um just it's a very important avenue, I think, and opportunity for women to show what they're capable of and what with training and sensible preparation you can achieve. And that is, I think, just, you know, I find it interesting. I wish more history was taught through sport. And any time I go to a major event, whether it's European championships like this one or Commonwealth Games or an Olympics I use it as a way of studying different countries what's their economy what how do they use sport to sell a message about themselves so whether it's South Pacific Islanders with their rugby or whether it's again the Middle East with them hosting

because they don't really have enough of a sporting culture within their own population to be successful at a sport, but they want to be seen as very important hosts. Look at Japan as well, how their efficiency is sort of told through their ability to host events really, really well, and sport is a major part of that. I just think it's, you know, people enjoy it. They think it's a hobby and a pastime, but I think it's also political. I think London's hosting of the 2012 Games was a massive, soft political power goal, actually.

I think it did an awful lot of, it had with it a lot of benefits in showing that London was a safe, efficient place. Probably need another one soon. But it's, you know, I think for a lot of countries, it's about more than scoring goals or winning races. It has a much bigger message and I love it for that. And so the history of sport

is something that, yeah, I would certainly be interested in doing more programmes about or writing about. Great stuff. Well, tell us the name of your programme, When's It On? Tuesday the 18th of July,

but obviously available after that on the Channel 4 player. And it's called When Football Banned Women. Fantastic. When Football Banned Women. Go and watch it, everybody. Claire Balding, thank you so much. Come back on the podcast.

I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone.