The FA invited the WFA to affiliate on the same basis as a County Association in 1983 and ten years later established a Women’s Football Committee to run the women’s game in England.ĭoncaster Belles were the first winners of the Women’s FA Cup, England won their first international under the FA’s auspices 10-0 in Slovenia and the FA began to administer a new FA Women’s Premier League with three divisions. The Women’s FA (WFA) was formed in 1969 and within three years the first 'Women’s FA Cup Final' and England Women’s international had been played. The FA banned women’s football from its clubs’ grounds but its view that football was ‘quite unsuitable for females’ changed towards the end of the 1960s. Their match with St Helen’s Ladies on Boxing Day 1920 had 53,000 inside Goodison Park and thousands locked outside. Preston was the stronghold of women’s football in its early days, the famous Dick Kerr’s Ladies being formed there in 1894 and earning a lot of money for charity. There were a number of women’s clubs in the 1890s and one in north London was reported to have attracted a 10,000 gate to a game at Crouch End.

Women’s football has a longer history than most people would expect.

The FA Women's Continental Tyres League Cup.

Game of war stronghold 21