March 23 - Honeyball Gets The Girls Going

NETTIE Honeyball may sound like name of the squeeze in the next James Bond film, but instead we have Ms Honeyball to thank for putting women’s football on the map. Today in 1895 saw the first official game of woman’s football, as a team of upper-class northern schoolgirls beat their southern counterparts 7-1.

Although women had been playing football since the birth of the game during the Han Dynasty in China (that’s 206 BC to 220 AD for all you history buffs), it wasn’t until football’s governing bodies created a standardised set of rules that prohibited violence in 1863 that the fairer sex got truly involved.

Honeyball placed an advert in the press in 1894 and when thirty women replied she created the British Ladies Football Club with the aim of “proving to the world that women are not the ‘ornamental and useless’ creatures men have pictured,” she said at the time, pre-empting Mike Newell’s rant by 112 years. Nettie was able to convince Tottenham player J.W. Julian to coach them and they would train twice a week in a park next to the Alexandra Park racecourse at Hornsey.

The initial match between the north and south was watched by a crowd of 10,000 at Crouch End, with the Manchester Guardian remarking that “Their costumes came in for a good deal of attention…. one or two added short skirts over their knicker-bockers…. When the novelty has worn off, I do not think women’s football will attract the crowds.” The Daily Sketch was even less appreciative: “The first few minutes were sufficient to show that football by women, if the British Ladies be taken as a criterion, is totally out of the question. A footballer requires speed, judgement, skill, and pluck. Not one of these four qualities was apparent on Saturday. For the most part, the ladies wandered aimlessly over the field at an ungraceful jog-trot.”

The girls efforts did find some support though, as The Sportsman said that: “True, young men would run harder and kick more strongly, but, beyond this, I cannot believe that they would show any greater knowledge of the game or skill in its execution. I don’t think the lady footballer is to be snuffed out by a number of leading articles written by old men out of sympathy both with football as a game and the aspirations of the young new women. If the lady footballer dies, she will die hard.” Eat your heart out Bruce Willis.

The woman’s game grew in popularity for the next twenty years, with some matches featuring the legendary Dick Kerr Ladies attracting attendances of over 50,000. Dick Kerr Ladies were a roving team from Preston that played to raise money for various charities, touring France in 1920 and playing over 60 times a year.

Despite the popularity of the women’s game with the general public, the FA frowned upon it, worrying that it would pose a threat to the masculinity of the game. In 1921 the powers that be banned the game from FA pitches, which was a huge blow to the development of the game.

It would stay banned for 50 years, when UEFA recommended that football associations across Europe should encourage the game. A first European Championship came about in 1984, with Sweden defeating England in the final. The Woman’s World Cup was established in 1991, with the USA picking up the inaugural title in China.

Following from last summer’s World Cup, the woman’s game is going from strength to strength, thanks to the efforts of Nettie and her pals all those years ago. Check out the top 5 goals from China 07 below and head over here tomorrow if you’re not too full of Easter eggs.