Short History Of... - Women’s Football

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Football is the most popular sport in the world, and is played anywhere from pitches marked out in desert dust, to warzones with helmets for goalposts. But it’s still predominantly a male sport. So what about the roots of women’s football in the UK? How did social change in the First World War contribute to its sudden growth? And after a catastrophic ban from the FA in 1921, how did the women’s game rise from the ashes? This is a Short History of Women’s Football. Written by Lindsay Galvin. With thanks to Jean Williams, author and professor of sports history. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/shorthistory Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage bacon and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing.

Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax at participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. It is late December, 1920, outside Goodison Park, Everton. This stadium is nestled in the terraced streets of the city of Liverpool,

in northwest England. Pouring out of the station en masse, the Boxing Day football supporters are cheerful, if a little bleary, after the Christmas festivities. A young girl grips her father's hand tight through a double layer of mittens. Excitement bubbles in her stomach. She's never been to a stadium this huge, but she's also a little nervous, as she knows a lot of noise makes her dad jumpy since he got back from the war. But he does love football, and he's come here today for her and to support her favourite team

from the Dick Kerr factory, where her mum helped make munitions. The Dick Kerr ladies are now playing games almost every weekend for charity. Today they are playing St. Helen's Ladies. Hawkers call out across the excited crowds, and the girl's father pauses to buy something. He presses a hot paper twist of roasted chestnuts into her hand before they carry on towards the gates. She peels one and pops it in her mouth, then wraps her new scarf back around her chin, showing off the black and white stripes of her team.

Soon, the walls of the stadium are looming over them. They've arrived. The crowd slows ahead of the turnstiles as people merge from all directions. There's the smell of cigarette smoke and wet wool, and beyond the gates there's the sound of a band playing. When it's their turn, her father fishes their tickets out of the breast pocket of his coat. Then the turnstiles click round, and they're in. The noise hits her like a wave as they enter the stadium.

There are two levels of stalls under a slanted roof, and a church at one corner of the pitch. They spot other black and white hats and scarves as they wind their way up the steps. Though the seats are nearly all full, other fans shift along the benches to make room for them. The girl settles, grinning, as her father chats to the other fans about goals this season. At the edge of the pitch, a boy's band plays, dressed smartly in suits, ties and caps, with their brass instruments gleaming. She hums along to the music, and when the crowd start drumming their feet against the wooden boards of the stands, she joins in. It's an amazing feeling to feel so at home in a crowd,

even though the only person she knows is her dad. Her father turns and hands her a wooden clacker. He shows her how to spin it round and round to make it sound, and she laughs out loud at the noisy thrill of it. The stadium quietens suddenly, and the band stops playing. For a moment, everyone is shuffling, craning their necks to see. Then the Dick Kerr ladies run onto the pitch, and the entire stadium erupts into a roar.

The young fan leaps to her feet, waving her clacker, eyes glued to the stream of players. They wear shorts, jerseys, socks pulled up smart, and striped caps just like hers. Straight away, she spots Lily Parr, tallest of the team, although only a teenager. Seeing her favorite player running out makes the little girl's heart burst with joy. player running out makes the little girl's heart burst with joy. If Lily can be out there, with thousands of people cheering her on, it means she can do anything too. The Boxing Day match at Goodison Park, Everton sees the Dick Kerr Ladies take on St. Helens Ladies in front of a 53,000 strong crowd.

With the stadium packed to the rafters, it's estimated that more than 10,000 spectators are turned away at the turnstiles. The Dick Kerr Ladies achieve a 4-0 win that day, but the real victory is the unprecedented amount raised for charity, mostly to support unemployed and injured servicemen. But just a year later, at the height of the women's success, the British Football Association banned women from playing on their affiliated pitches. Football, known in the US as soccer, is the most popular sport in the world. It can be played anywhere.

From a plateau of flattened snow, to a pitch marked out in desert dust, to war zones where helmets are used for goalposts. There are billion pound football stadiums in every capital city of the world. It's still a game played predominantly by men, but what are the roots of women's football in the UK? How were changing gender roles in World War I linked to its sudden growth? And how has the game risen from the ashes of the catastrophic Football Association ban?

I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of women's football. The England women's national football team, now known as the Lionesses, have never been stronger. Particularly after their dazzling European Cup win of 2022, they have an unprecedented fan base behind them. Cup win of 2022, they have an unprecedented fan base behind them. But though many think that women's football is new, its roots go as far back as the men's game. Way back into pre-history, ball games are part of community life. Running, coordination, team skills and athleticism enable early humans to escape predators and help them hunt for food and women are part of these early games historians refer to these early unregulated versions of the game as folk football and it's played throughout the ancient world by both women and men there are examples of

ancient egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient g Greek pottery depicting women playing ball sports. Jean Williams is a professor of sports history and leading academic author on women's football worldwide. What we call folk football, today we would think of it as a kind of form of freestyling, you know, keepy-uppy and hitting the ball with different parts of the body, You know, keepy-uppy and hitting the ball with different parts of the body, which then developed into a team game that was over nets. There's all sorts of folk football by women all over the world in which the ball represented the seed going into the earth for a harvest. In the UK, ball games are documented from as far back as the 12th century. At Shrove Tide, an important and often rowdy pre-Lent festival,

the whole community will gather for feasting and sport, including cockfighting, tug-of-war and skipping. Shrove Tide football becomes the most widespread and long-lived of the games played, with many communities continuing the tradition to this day. The ball is an inflated sheep or pig's bladder encased in leather. Working class women are part of these whole village activities alongside everyone else. These early football matches are examples of invasion games, where a team takes the other team's territory by moving a ball. where a team takes the other team's territory by moving a ball.

Regional variations become ingrained in local custom, though some come with unusual alterations. We have in Leicestershire what's called Hallerton bottle kicking, which they didn't actually kick a bottle. It was actually a keg of beer, and then one team used to try to get it off the other village and whoever won the keg of beer got to drink it. So it speaks to those kind of old invasion games. By the 14th century, football is getting a reputation as disorderly and even subversive.

Medieval King Edward II of England receives complaints from the Lord Mayor of London about large games of public football in the streets and fields. In 1314, he issues a royal order that forbids the playing of what he calls their godless game within town walls. The last thing any king needs is his soldiers injured before they reach the battlefield. But still, football continues to thrive, despite subsequent kings making similar efforts to ban it. In this rigid, patriarchal society, the clergy produces most of what later historians will rely on. This, and the fact that most women are illiterate, means women's history is poorly documented,

especially that of the working classes. But church documents from Lanarkshire in Scotland detail drunkenness at a men's and women's football game in 1628. It's rare evidence of women playing against women. For centuries, football is played with ad hoc and regional rules. But in the 1820s, the game is taken on by England's private boys' schools. Strict guidelines develop, but each school has its own variants. It isn't until 1863 that the Football Association is formed to regulate the game. Soon, school teams and others forming in London and the suburbs start taking up these standardized rules

and can play each other. But what are the women doing while the men's sport grows and becomes organized? With Victorians characterizing the ideal woman as chaste, pious, weaker than and dependent on men, vigorous exercise is frowned upon. The development of women's sport is inextricably linked to women's suffrage. The Married Women's Property Act of 1870 is a leap forward, giving back some financial rights to certain women, an entitlement they lost in the 13th century.

to certain women, an entitlement they lost in the 13th century. It was part of a broader move toward female physical emancipation. So women were fighting for the vote at the same time as physically asserting themselves in streets by being on bicycles for the first time. So that gave them a form of personal mobility. Taking up sports like tennis and croquet, it was about, okay, well, we have the right to resource and we have the right to leisure time and we have the right to do as we wish with our own bodies. So it was very much a feminist message.

Women's football is more of a challenge for society to accept than other sports, which are typically played by upper-class ladies with time for leisure activities. But still, a match between married and single working women in Scotland that's recorded in 1877 proves the women's game is still happening. Towards the end of the 19th century, Scottish suffragist Helen Matthews brings women's football out of the shadows. A feminist, sporting pioneer, and entrepreneur, she is above all a passionate footballer, and acts as both her team's manager and their goalkeeper.

In 1881, aged 23, she organises the London versus Glasgow women's match. It was billed as England versus Scotland, not because the teams were representative of England and Scotland, but it picked up on that rivalry that was already there in football from the first men's official international in 1872. So it was designed to draw a big crowd by calling England v Scotland because even if you weren't that interested in women's

football, especially as it was held in Glasgow, you were going to support the Scottish team against the English. Matthews publicises the game for months, and it attracts widespread press attention. Maybe to avoid revealing their true identities and risk disgracing their families, most play under a pseudonym or nom de football. Matthews calls herself Mrs. Graham, and her team Mrs. Graham's Eleven. But before the game gets started, she has to consider the question of kit. With the accepted norms of modest clothing, including corseted waists and flowing skirts, the more genteel sports like golf and croquet can be played with small modifications.

But football requires clothing that suits the practicalities of the game. Though some early images exist of women having a kick-around in bonnets and corsets, in this game the players wear a hybrid kit, with loose blouses and a short skirt flapping over trousers. Reporters focus more on the women's costumes than the quality of their play, with one journalist remarking that the players can hardly be distinguished from men at a distance. Women's football, I think, has always been challenging to public perception because it's essentially a male silhouette or an androgynous silhouette. And what I mean by that is that women generally wear shorts

and shirts and shin pads and boots. They don't wear different things. The Scottish team win 3-0, and a rematch is quickly arranged. Matthew's counterpart, managing the England team, goes by the name of Nettie Honeyball, another pioneer of the women's game. Nettie's true identity may be Mary Hudson, hailing from a middle-class family from South London. But she's so successful in her disguise that even now no one knows for sure. And she has good reason to be concerned about security. It's the 16th of May 1881, a bright windy day. At Shawfield Athletic Ground, Glasgow, 22 women and girls are 10 minutes into the second half of the game

billed as the England versus Scotland rematch. The mostly male crowd, more than 5,000 strong, have returned well-oiled from the half-time break. And with the scoreline at nil-nil, there's still everything to play for. 17-year-old striker Lily St. Clair dribbles down the right wing, blouse and bloomers swelling against the breeze. It's a pleasure to play in dry conditions.

It means she can make the most of her natural speed. As she flies towards the goal, she tries to focus on nothing but the ball. But when she looks up, her gaze catches on a man in the crowd behind the goal, making an obscene gesture. Distracted, she lines up the shot on the goal, but she's left it too late. She shoots, eyes glued to the brown leather ball, it arcs too high, and as the crowd lifts from their seats, it smacks into the crossbar, rebounding into the goalkeeper's hands. Someone gives her a consoling slap on the back,

as the ball is booted to the other end. But the crowd don't sit back down. The disappointed England fans aren't just booing, they're furious, pushing and shoving. Lillie's heard about pitch invasions in the men's matches becoming more common, but it wouldn't happen here, would it? The noise from the stands intensifies, and soon she has her answer. It happens too quickly to see where it even begins.

Men break through the wooden slats of the enclosures and surge onto the pitch. For a moment some of the players try to play on, hoping the few police constables in attendance will keep things under control. Now a man races to the ball, boots it, and shoves the players with high elbows. The teams gather protectively together in a single group as more of the crowd surge onto the pitch. But as Lily runs to join them, she sees one of the English players being tripped over. The girl goes down and the crowd pools around her. Without giving it a second thought, Lily barges through to her aid. The men jostle her, their leering faces reddened by drink. The men jostle her, their leering faces reddened by drink. She hauls up the girl, then, joining the others, she runs for the exit.

As the footballers sprint through the narrow tunnel and leave the pitch, a group of police officers swarm in, their helmet straps tight across their chins and dark capes swinging. Shouting at the crowd to stay back, they draw truncheons. Lily doesn't wait to see what happens, instead following the other women out onto the street. With relief, they find their horse-drawn omnibus waiting. The players pile into the open coach, but the crowd is too much for the police officers. As the omnibus pulls away and gathers speed, the angry mob spills out of the stadium. Then, with horror, the players see something sailing towards them.

Ducking as it lands wide, they realize what it is. Some of these men have pulled up the stakes that mark the perimeter of the pitch and are launching them at the coach. The next week, Helen Matthews' team are due to stage another game, but after hearing of the events in Glasgow, their hosts refuse the use of their ground. It's nothing new for football to be a rowdy affair, but this seems to run deeper than the usual team rivalry. Though some newspaper reports of the event maintain a neutral tone,

others don't disguise their disdain for these women who are breaking gender norms. The Manchester Guardian accuses the players of gratifying vulgar curiosity and denigrates their outfits as neither graceful or becoming. The Leeds Mercury reports that ladies' football has had an exceeding short life and not a very merry one. But if its Victorian detractors hope this means women's footballers are hanging up their boots, they're soon disappointed. Helen Matthews and Nettie Honeyball are just getting started. In 1894, Honeyball founds the British Ladies Football Club

with the respectable patronage of writer and war correspondent Lady Florence Dixie. No longer allowed to play in Scotland, Helen Matthews joins this new team. They advertise for players in London periodicals, billing football as a manly game that could be womanly as well. 30 women answer Honeyball's call and training gets underway. Basically, their message was anything that men can do, we can do too. It was kind of proving that Victorian women were not these sort of fragile creatures who needed to stay indoors and be protected.

And sections of the mainly male press were disapproving of that. But at the same time, other sections kind of embraced the modernity of it and said, well, maybe this is the future. You know, instead of starch crinolines, maybe women will literally take to the field. So it was a mixture of views, really. will literally take to the field. So it was a mixture of views, really.

In 1895, 10,000 attend the first official women's football match. The British ladies tour the country, but they don't only play against other women. In fact, that British ladies football club by 1902, some of their biggest matches were played against men. And they drew very large crowds leading to the FA to say in 1902, you know, men must not play against women's teams. So you have that kind of gender policing happening very early on in the 20th century. They didn't really give a reason, but it was undoubtedly because it was popular.

And that is a story that we're going to see again and again. Whenever women's football becomes popular, the FA try to suppress it. They try, but they fail. The British ladies are by now far from the only women's club playing. Local teams spring up all over the country with over 100 active clubs in the first decade of the 1900s the outbreak of world war one prompts a sudden shift in gender roles with men conscripted to the front women now make up half of the british labor force this time ladies football doesn't rely on the patronage of the aristocracy and goes back to its working-class roots. Before World War I, most young women think Downton Abbey would work in other people's homes as maids. So they have very little time to socialise,

usually only a Sunday afternoon, and very little money with which to socialise, usually only a Sunday afternoon, and very little money with which to socialise. World War I comes along and initially men are working in the munitions factories, but then when we get compulsory conscription, those men go to the front and women move into the munitions factories. And because they have work outside the home, they are entitled then to leisure outside the home. And although the women were paid only half what the men were, it's more money than most of them had ever had. And they start to play football during tea breaks, often with men, and then start to set up women's football teams. The women's matches become more organised and competitive, particularly in industrial cities.

But these games aren't purely for leisure. They are an active part of the war effort on the home front. And it becomes a kind of double war work, working in the factories in the day and then evenings and weekends raising funds for charity by playing football, and often the charities were for wounded soldiers returning from the front. So it really was a piece of, and I think this is what is often

misunderstood about women's football at the time, it was a really patriotic activity. They didn't rest from the dirty and dangerous work in the factories. They went out and played games of 90-minute football, which is kind of astonishing, really, in terms of personal dedication. One of the Trailblazer teams is comprised of women working at the Dick Kerr Munitions Factory in Preston. Quickly rising to become the best team in England, they are superb sportswomen and draw huge, mixed crowds. They play the first ever ladies' international game against France the same year as their record-breaking Boxing Day match.

It's lucrative too. In the 1920-21 season, the Dick Kerr ladies raised £46,000 for charity, In the 1920-21 season, the Dick Kerr ladies raised £46,000 for charity, millions in today's money. But now that the war is over and the men who survived it are back home, the old restrictions about what women can and should do return with a vengeance. Just in the same way that women were thrown out of factory work because those jobs were given back to returning soldiers and women had to retrain, there was a massive move within society to try to go back to where things were before the war.

Women did win the vote for women over 28 years old who were householders and all the rest of it. So there was a political concession to the part that women had played during World War I. But actually in terms of societal norms, there were shifts right across society to try to get women back into the position that they'd been. The catastrophic blow comes in 1921, when the FA decide they will no longer allow women to play on FA-affiliated pitches.

As all pitches by this time are FA-affiliated, the decision amounts to no less than a ban on women's football. No matter that their game is hugely popular, or that the highly skilled players have proven their strength and ability. Devastated, one Dick Kerr ladies' player, Alice Barlow, says, We could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men, and our bigger games were for charity. But there's a financial element at play, too. As the FA only represents the men's game,

it can't control the money that the women's game makes, a crucial issue in this time of social unrest. In March 1921, miners are hit with a pay cut due to the privatization of coal mines after the war, and many strike, so go without pay for months. These working-class women's teams openly support striking miners playing charity matches in hard-hit industrial cities like cardiff and swansea the fa is appalled by what they see as women's involvement in national politics like many men they want to see women return to pre-war roles in the home and kitchen they gave reasons for banning women's football.

One is that football is an unsuitable game for women, so that they implied that women would actually harm themselves if they played such a strenuous game. It's part of this broader social conservatism that women were actually overexerting themselves and doing things that were harmful, when actually what they should be doing, of course, is producing babies,

because we needed to rebuild the population after the decimation of World War I. The other implication that the FA made, and there never was any evidence of it, is that too much of the money that was raised for charity had been taken by the players in expenses for themselves. Almost as if, rather than fundraising, they were somehow embezzling the takings. And given that they did all this as part of their patriotic war work, I think that that is a particularly spiteful assertion. spiteful assertion.

The power of the FA to stymie the women's game in the UK is absolute. The initial women's rights, hard won by those famed suffragettes, have come nowhere near far enough to allow them to fight back. People often say to me, well, why didn't they go away and build their own pitches? But how were women who could not own property at the time or get access to credit, how were they meant to build pitches in places that were accessible to other women? Most women in the 1920s didn't own their own home. Though they can't fight the ban on home soil, by now the Dick Kerr ladies are known to footballing nations worldwide. So their manager takes the team on tour. These working class girls, most of whom had never even been to London before they became footballers, now travel to France.

From there they move on to Canada, and it's here that they hit yet another roadblock. While they're en route, the Canadian Football Association follows the British example and bans women's matches on its pitches. According to them, a woman was not built to stand the bruises gotten in playing football. Pushed out by Canada, the Dick Kerr ladies are forced to enter the US leg of their tour early. But while they're welcomed, women's football here isn't yet widespread. So the women play some of the top professional teams in the men's soccer league. They hold their own, winning three and tying three over their eight games. and tying three over their eight games.

Their prowess is widely reported, with particular amazement at the skills and power of their winger and top goalscorer, Lily Parr. A working-class player from the industrial town of St. Helens in Merseyside, she was picked up by the Dick Kerr ladies, aged only 15. Standing 5'10", she is renowned as much for her strength and endurance as she is for chain-smoking powerful woodbine cigarettes. But despite their popularity abroad, there's no change to the FA's stance. It effectively buries official women's football in the UK and marks the beginning of 50 years of unregulated sport. Games are pushed onto rugby pitches, village greens or even waste grounds where spectators cannot attend.

Passion for the sport keeps the teams playing, but it's on such a small scale that women's football seems to disappear completely. And if the blanket FA ban wasn't enough, its local branches make things even harder. In 1947, Kent County Football Association suspends a referee because he is also managing the Kent Ladies Football Club. It justifies its action, saying that women's football brings the game into disrepute. After the Second World War, though the women's game is still shunned, clubs continue to spring up. And when an unofficial European Championship is staged by the International Ladies Football Association in Berlin,

one Manchester club, the Corinthians, takes on the mantle of representing England. Women's football teams may be forbidden by the German FA, but their ban is much less stridently enforced than in Britain. The powerhouse English team beat their opponents 4-0, once again raising many thousands for charity. But the women, who must take time away from their jobs and families to take part, play solely for the love of football and are paid no more than expenses. The 1960s brings in a turning tide of social change.

As women start to campaign for equality, the FA finally recognizes that its policy on women's football is outdated and unsustainable. In 1970, it bows to pressure and votes to lift the ban on women's football in the following year. But three months before the rule is officially overturned, in 1971 a rebel England side participate in an unofficial World Cup in Mexico. side participate in an unofficial World Cup in Mexico. Their manager is Harry Batt, who, alongside his wife June, is manager of Chilton Valley Ladies. They have battled at every turn to make the FA recognize the potential of the women's

game. Now, the young team from Milton Keynes, a little north of London, are invited to play in South America. And when the squad arrive in Mexico City under the name the British Independence, they are dazzled by their reception. It's early evening in August 1971 on the runway of Mexico City's International Airport. As the air ripples above the heat of the tarmac, a plane taxes to a halt. As the hatch opens and the stairs are brought into place, passengers start to open the overhead lockers. The cabin crew say goodbye to

the usual departing businessmen and tourists, but they save the biggest smiles for the last group of travellers. These young women, dressed in identical white tracksuit tops, will be representing England in the upcoming football tournament. Half of them are teenagers, and the youngest among them, 13-year-old Leah Caleb, follows her teammates towards the metal stairs. As she emerges, she squints against the bright light, thinking at first that it's the setting sun blinding her. But then she realizes her mistake. The light is coming from cameras, too many of them to count. There must be a celebrity on board the flight, maybe a famous actor. The heat outside hits her like a wave of something solid,

like nothing she's ever experienced. But this whole trip has already been filled with firsts. She'd never got on a plane before they set off. They've been warned about the altitude as well, but it's a struggle to breathe normally. It's only now, as the team gathers at the bottom of the steps, that they realize the reporters are here for them. Laughing in disbelief, they wave as they're hurried along

by Pat, their chaperone, and Harry, their manager. As a pair of smartly uniformed airport officials force the reporters to hang back, the players are ushered into the cool building. They pass quickly through the airport, barely looking at passport control. Their cases are brought to them from the luggage carousels so they don't have to wait. And when they get to arrivals, they're met by a crowd of supporters. As soon as they spot the team, the fans start cheering and calling their names.

Outside the airport, they are guided into a coach. Leah settles into her seat, relieved, but more fans swell around them as the coach pulls away. The road is jammed, every car seemingly leaning on their horn at once. Then, something thuds gently against the side of the vehicle. Then, something thuds gently against the side of the vehicle. Though the crowd seems cheerful, they are throwing more and more small missiles towards the coach. One soars through the open window next to Leah. As they wind through the traffic onto an open carriageway, a police car draws alongside.

Leah panics. Has something gone wrong? What is the crowd throwing? Is it dangerous? Remembering her father's stories of the gas attacks in the war, she scrabbles for the package and finds it beneath her seat. The coach is speeding up now, and outside the police sirens are wailing. She unwraps the brightly colored package and finds a tiny soap inside, smelling sweet and strong and carved in the shape of a flower. A gift, she realizes. The crowd were throwing presents. She grins, holding it up for the team to see, and then one of the girls points out that there are more police cars to the sides,

front and back, clearing the way. And as they pass under a bridge, a group of children call out, raining flowers down upon them. The Young England team plays to stadiums of 80,000, but lose the three matches played in the group stages. It's no great surprise, considering they have no proper pitches to play on at home. Normality must hit hard when they return home. In their time away, they've been ferried from drinks at the British Embassy to television interviews to press conferences and autograph signings. Now they return to school, home and work, with no mention of their achievement.

Just after they arrive home, though, the resolution to lift the FA ban comes into action. At long last women can play on FA-affiliated grounds. But as the Association have no intention of funding the voluntary women's FA, the game remains without resources. But as one ban lifts, another descends. As punishment for playing as a national team in Mexico without the newly formed WFA's permission, the returning women and girls are suspended for either three or six months, depending on their age.

And manager Harry Batt is given a lifetime ban from managing, coaching or refereeing another team. Elsewhere, the sport forges ahead. In the 1970s, Italy becomes the first country to contract women's professional footballers on a part-time basis and to import foreign footballers, raising the profile of their league. Sweden and Japan follow suit soon afterwards. In the same decade, the USA writes equality of physical education in its schools into law.

Because it's seen as a gentler alternative to American football, many US schoolgirls now routinely play soccer. From here, the game develops into the college system. Crowds grow, which in turn leads to greater profits. Back in England, though the women's team is now affiliated, it's considered amateur and remains sorely underfunded. It's of little surprise then when in 1991 England does not qualify for the Women's World Cup. The only viable professional opportunities for English players are to leave their country and play in US and other European teams. The momentum though is building. In 1993 women's football finally comes under the control of the FA, heralding a steady rise in numbers of participants.

A few years later, Hope Powell is appointed as the first ever full-time coach for England's women. Herself an attacking midfielder with 35 international goals to her name, she has racked up 66 caps for England. 66 caps for England. Following in the footsteps of Helen Matthews, Nettie Honeyball and the Dick Kerr ladies, she makes huge strides for the women's game. She was the first full-time manager that the England team had had and the England team had been going then since 1972. She was also tasked with overhauling the whole of women's football

in this country, as well as managing England. The first black England manager, the youngest England manager to date, and the first openly gay England manager. And that is a hell of a lot for somebody to take on. And we now have the Women's Super League because she wanted to help professionalise women's football in this country. Powell faces an uphill struggle. To raise the profile of women's football, she must also raise the quality of the game.

But all her players work other jobs. Against the odds, she manages to lead her team to two World Cup tournaments and four European Championships. Finally, in 2008, four of the women's national squad are offered professional contracts. But they're worth just £16,000 per year. As long as they're still dependent on full or part-time work elsewhere, it's difficult to train intensively enough to compete against better-funded professional teams in Europe and the USA. There's a huge profile boost with the 2012 London Olympics, where Team GB puts forward its first-ever women's football team.

They reach the quarter-finals, and a record crowd of 80,000 turn up to watch the gold medal match between the US and Japan. But it seems, whenever women's football rises, something forces it back down. After the unprecedented gains made by Hope Powell, two male England managers follow, with either no international experience or no background in women's football. But the most recent appointment gives the team the manager they deserve. And then we get Serena Weidman,

who had already won the Euros on home soil with the Netherlands and had taken her team to the Olympic Games. So I can't overemphasise really what a watershed it is for the FA in 2021 to appoint someone for the first time who got international experience of winning a tournament. England's women, now known as the Lionesses, beat Germany 2-1 in extra time at Wembley to win the UEFA Women's European Cup in 2022.

Women's European Cup in 2022. In a stunning chapter, in a true underdog story, they bring home the country's first major football trophy since the men won the World Cup in 1966. Women's football is entering a new era of sponsorship and professionalism, but there is still a long way to go. but there is still a long way to go. A lot has been made around the prize money for Women's World Cup having been tripled to £110 million, but the prize money for Men's World Cup,

the whole prize pot, was something like £750 million. And that's why it was so symbolic. The England victory in a packed out wembley was an answer to this 50-year ban because it took us another 50 years since the ban was lifted to get from there to a sellout england at wembley and that shows again how slow and conservative and male football culture is at the level of governance, not at the level of play. It's really difficult to see what kind of parity we're going to get. Sport is one of the most conservative industries in the world, I would argue.

But football fans are beginning to fight back against this conservatism. While men's football might be blighted by incidences of racism and homophobia, the women's game provides a more inclusive alternative for fans. I think there is a progressive demographic that women's football can appeal to, a massive LGBTQ plus population, as well as family demographic and male fans who don't like the values of the premiership. So there's a big audience out there for women's football. And anyone who was lucky enough to be in Wembley last July, everybody was in tears because it was such a feel good story.

But it was such an important moment for women owning the sports arena I mean we knew what we were doing when we took over Wembley there was no fighting or scrapping or anything like that you could stand next to a Germany fan and kind of try and console them or not and it was just a big loving and that's the kind of culture of women's football continuing inequality between men's and women's football is shown most starkly in the pay gap the women's super league english football's top women's competition is one of the most competitive and professional in world football, but the average yearly salary in the WSL is said to be £30,000, with top stars paid around £400,000. In comparison, male players earn eye-watering sums, with Premier League players routinely earning £600,000 per week.

Bonuses, prize money, image rights and sponsorship deals are all much more lucrative in the men's game than in the women's game. But the future is bright for women's football. Thanks to the success of the Lionesses, the game has rediscovered its supporter base to put even the fame of Lily Parr and the Dick Kerr ladies to shame. Women will play on, against all odds, as they always have.

You don't meet a boring woman footballer. They'd have gone away and done something else. If they didn't have grit, determination, absolute passion for football, and were willing to go, do you know what, you can belittle me, you can undermine me, you can under-resource me, you can marginalise me, you can ignore me, you can do all of that, but I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway. I did do it anyway. Next time on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of Charlie Chaplin.

Every great Hollywood director or producer or actor will cite Chaplin as an influence on their work. And even though he just had this one great figure, the little tramp, that kind of encapsulates everything that Hollywood's all about, really. It's that one great figure, the little tramp, that kind of encapsulates everything

that Hollywood's all about, really. It's that one individual figure who's trying to achieve something great. And whether he succeeds or whether he fails, that's what the movies are all about. And that's what Chaplin really communicated on screen. That's next time.