Paperback - 172 pages
A lovely history of the Dick, Kerr Company women's
team that started in Preston, Lancashire, England in 1917 to raise money
for charities. (The first recorded women's game in England was on Saturday,
March 23, 1885 at the Crouch End Athletic Ground in north London arranged
by the British Ladies Football Club). By 1920 Dick, Kerr Ladies Team
played before a paying crowd of 53,000 in Everton, the next year the
English FA banned women from playing on FA affiliated pitches, a ban
that kept women out of the English FA for over 50 years. Meanwhile the
Dick, Kerr team kept the women's game alive for the next 40 years. This
book covers the women, scandals and prejudices that the players met
during their efforts to play soccer. Well worth reading, and it helps
put into perspective the current explosion of women's soccer in the
world.
© WSW November/December 1998
