Even during the dark days of World War One there was still some time for frivolity on the football field as at Elm Park, Reading in September 1917 a team of men playing with their hands tied behind their back took on a team of women. An early wave of women's football having begun in the late 1890s, apparently inspired by the Rational Dress movement and generally believed to have been organised by Nettie Honeyball in England and Lady Florence Dixie in Scotland.
The Football Association Council in their infinite wisdom in those days though quickly put a ban, in August 1902, on 'lady teams' competing against men. That didn't stop women copying men however, even down to taking up six-a-side football on roller skates. Yes you did read that right, on roller skates, the 'sport' first being played at Brighton skating-rink with goals six foot high and seven foot wide and a football that contained a pint of water to stop it rising.
And with World War One underway, and therefore with men away in the forces and women in Britain adopting male roles, there was a big upsurge in women's football with the standard picking up massively from that in 1895 when 'Lady Correspondent' of the Manchester Guardian had commented: "They danced around the ball when they reached it as if uncertain what to do with it, much after the manner of a lapdog which has accidentally laid hold of the cat which he has made an elaborate show of pursuing."
Some media coverage, via the Portsmouth Football Mail reading much better by the end of the war though with the quote that Ada Anscombe was 'the finest woman player in the country', with the piece also alleging that a male team had offered two of their men for her in a transfer deal. Back in the world of charity football though, which was a good source of the beautiful game during hostilities, and the ladies who faced a team of convalesecing Canadian soldiers in that Elm Park match had already raised the healthy sum in those days of £161 for various charities during 1917.
Sadly however on this midweek Autumn afternoon the weather was dire and the receipts for the game were more than likely swallowed up by expenses. The match went ahead though and after a band from Bearwood Hospital had played, Surgeon-General Foster, director of the Canadian Medical Services, kicked the game off after the opening whistle had been blown by Colonel Mayus, the referee. Mayus being the director of bayonet fighting and physical training, so I would imagine that none of the players thought it wise to argue with his decision making.
It was the women who took the plaudits though as they ran out 8-5 winners, with Miss Barrell getting a hat-trick, while Miss Small and Miss Wragg bagged a brace apiece and Miss Bentley got on the scoresheet once. Rumours, perhaps bitter ones though, abounding that the Canadian soldiers had been too gallant to win even playing under the penalty of having their hands tied behind their backs.
At the end of the war, and with an understandable shortage of men, we then had what is now looked back on as the golden age of women's football immediately in the first few years after the war, with one game between Dick, Kerr Ladies and St Helens Ladies attracting a remarkable 53,000 people at Goodison Park on Boxing Day in 1920, with a further 10-15,000 said to have been locked out. The Dick, Kerr Ladies side winning 4-0 in a match that would raise the bumper total of £3,115 for charitable causes.
The good feeling about the women's game didn't last long though as in 1921 the FA barred women's teams from playing at any FA-affiliated grounds, with Alice Barlow from the Dick, Kerr Ladies side commenting on the crazy decision: "It came as a shock and we could only put it down to jealousy. We were more popular than the men and our bigger gates were for charity.I don't swear so I can't tell you what some of the team said but it was sad because it had been such happy times".