I’m really looking forward to tonight’s ‘No Man Could Stop Us!’ show at Hebden Bridge Town Hall. If you are coming then feel free to use the hashtag #FABan when mentioning it on social media. We have some excellent guests and I’ll be highlighting the history of women’s football from the nineteenth century through to the 1921 FA ban. I’ll then explain what happened to the sport over the following 50 years, until it was officially lifted in January 1970. We’ll be hearing from players who had lengthy careers with Manchester Corinthians, Manchester City, Manchester United, Redstar, Bronte, Doncaster Belles and England. It promises to be an excellent night.
Late next week I’ll post an article here on the evening’s events for those unable to make it. The evening has been sponsored by Geoff Matthews and his company Cansquared – thank you for all your support and enthusiasm.
On Friday 3 I’ll be talking about the FA ban on women playing on FA affiliated grounds. It will be the centenary of the ban on December 5 2021 and ill be talking with women who played during the ban in the 50s and 60s and others who played in the 70s onwards. Incredibly the FA ban wasn’t lifted until 1970 and even then the FA did nothing to promote female participation. Details of the talk below (follow the link):
On this day (25th November) in 1988 the South Manchester Reporter featured Manchester City’s new women’s team for the first time. Neil Mather had set up the team and staged some training/selection sessions and, when this news article appeared, the women were about to face Oldham Athletic in their first ever fixture.
You can read all about those early days and the history of the club in my book Manchester City Women: An Oral History. You can buy the book here:
Aware of when England beat Germany in the final of a European tournament in 1957? No, well here’s the story of when they did…
The match saw the pioneering women’s team, Manchester Corinthians, play as England. They won 4-0 in the final of a European championship in 1957, played in Berlin. This game, like so many others when the Corinthians played as England, are not officially recognised as internationals unfortunately, but no one should underestimate the achievements of the Manchester women who took part. At the time they occurred these were full-blooded affairs with some moments caught on film.
For an article I wrote some time ago on the Germany game follow this link:
This season has seen Manchester City players win several prominent player of the year awards with Kevin De Bruyne winning the PFA player of the year award; Phil Foden the PFA young player of the year and Lauren Hemp won the women’s PFA young player of the year award. There was also Ruben Dias won the FWA footballer of the year award and the Premier League player of the year award.
This is an incredible array of awards. The following subscriber post details all the Manchester City winners of these awards since their formation:
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On this day (April 13) in 2014 Manchester City’s women’s team played its first competitive game after the relaunch. It was a FA Cup tie against Reading played at the Regional Athletics Arena.
Here for subscribers is a section of Manchester City Women: An Ora History discussing that opening game:
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Today (8th March 2021) is International Women’s Day and so I thought I’d post a few links to great content about pioneering women connected to Manchester football on this website.
My intention over the coming months and years is to make http://www.GJFootballArchive.com an archive of my past writing and new material on all aspects of football in the Manchester region (and material on activity beyond Manchester or involving national figures connected with the region). To subscriber to my site then please see the details below.
This includes material on the women’s teams of Manchester, such as the pioneering Wythenshawe/Manchester Ladies of the 1940s & 1950s; the Manchester Corinthians (globe trotting pioneering team of the 1940s to 1980s); Manchester City; Manchester United and the other clubs, such as FC Redstar, that have existed in our region. It also includes profiles and interviews with footballers; those working in football and the media; footballers’ partners; supporters and more.
All of this is based on my detailed research and writing on football in the region. I attended my first women’s game in 1988 (home team was F.C. Redstar) and was a regular at their games and Manchester City Ladies (now Women) during their formative years, including brief details on their first ever game in my first book published in 1989. Since then I’ve also written Manchester City Women: An Oral History (see https://gjfootballarchive.com/shop/ to order copies) and am researching for a detailed history on women and football in Manchester at the moment.
Listed here are a few links to articles connected with women, football and Manchester that may be of interest:
I did an interview with Premier League World on Manchester City Women. It’s episode 38 and can be viewed here (if you have Amazon Prime): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Premier-League-World/dp/B08HDGSNZN Or it can be viewed on the following channels:
BT Sport 1 Monday 12pm
BT Sport 1 Tuesday 12:30am
Sky Sports Premier League Thursday 5pm
Sky Sports Premier League Friday 3pm
Sky Sports Premier League Saturday 8am
The feature is the last one shown in the programme, so please keep watching to the end. The piece starts after about 18 minutes.
To access all of the above and everything else on this site please subscribe:
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If you would like to read all the in-depth articles on this site (including the entire Manchester A Football History book and the audio interview with John Bond) then please subscribe. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Each subscriber gets full access to the 270+ articles posted so far and the hundreds scheduled to be posted in the coming weeks.
Today’s guest blog follows on from last week’s guest blog in which Steve Bolton talked of the Manchester Ladies (who also went under the name Wythenshawe Ladies, City of Manchester Ladies, Manchester City Ladies the 1940s & 1950s) and their early years. Today is part two of Steve’s research into this pioneering women’s club (part one can be viewed here: https://gjfootballarchive.com/?p=1863 ).
Over the last few years much has been written about pioneering women’s football teams and Steve’s research is certainly adding to that. I’m sure anyone reading this already knows about my book on Manchester City Women (available here: https://gjfootballarchive.com/shop/ ) and about the other articles on this blog discussing other leading women’s clubs, including the Manchester Corinthians (see: https://gjfootballarchive.com/category/womens-football-2/ ).
If you played for a women’s team in the Manchester region during the 1940s to 1960s then please get in touch. I’m writing a detailed history of the Manchester Corinthians to be published in 2024 and your information may help both mine and Steve Bolton’s research. For more on the Corinthians book see:
If you played an active part in developing women’s football prior to the FA ban then please get in touch by emailing gary@GJFootballArchive.com or follow me on twitter: @garyjameswriter or facebook.com/garyjames4
To commemorate International Women’s Day I’ve been involved with a couple of things. One is Steve Bolton’s Guest Blog on a Manchester women’s team from the 1940s & 1950s – part two is available on Friday; part one is available here:
The other item is an episode of the TV show Premier League World. If you have access to the Premier League World then the current episode (broadcast in UK on 3rd March at 11pm) includes the piece. Episode 38 focuses on women and football.
I helped the programme with a feature on the Manchester City Women’s team. This is a positive piece on the history of the club and includes interviews with myself, Steph Houghton, Lucy Bronze and Gareth Taylor.
If you’ve got Amazon Prime then you can also download it now. It’s episode 38 and the piece starts after 18 minutes:
Premier League World is available around the globe so please check your own TV listings. Here in the UK the show will appear on Amazon Prime, Sky Sports and BT Sport with the following times for Sky & BT:
BT Sport 3 Thursday 10:30pm
BT Sport 1 Friday 3pm
BT Sport 1 Sunday 8:30am
BT Sport 1 Monday 12pm
BT Sport 1 Tuesday 12:30am
Sky Sports Premier League Today 11pm
Sky Sports Mix Today 11pm
Sky Sports Premier League Thursday 5pm
Sky Sports Premier League Friday 3pm
Sky Sports Premier League Saturday 8am
The feature is the last one shown in the programme, so please keep watching to the end. The piece starts after about 18 minutes).
The book that we flick through is my book on the team: Manchester City Women: An Oral History. It tells the story of the club from its birth and can be bought here:
Over the last few years much has been written about pioneering women’s football teams and I’m delighted to say that Manchester has had several of these over the years. I’m sure anyone reading this knows about my book on Manchester City Women (available here: https://gjfootballarchive.com/shop/ ) and about the other articles on this blog discussing other clubs, including the Manchester Corinthians (see: https://gjfootballarchive.com/category/womens-football-2/ ).
Thanks to the Manchester Corinthians the story of pioneering Mancunian female footballers has received some decent coverage in recent years but it would be wrong to think that the women who played for Corinthians were the first women who played football in our region. There are games staged in Manchester going back to the 1880s of course. However, following the 1921 ban (which saw the FA ban women’s football games from FA affiliated pitches) opportunities were restricted significantly.
In Preston the famous Dick Kerr Ladies have been heralded for their efforts and in the 1950s & 1960s Manchester Corinthians found global fame for their exploits, but football tends to overlook many other clubs and in 1940s Manchester, before the Corinthians became established there was another female football club that promoted the sport, charity work and female prowess.
For today’s guest blog researcher Steve Bolton provides the first part of his research into the stories, facts and evidence of this Manchester team:
If you played for a women’s team in the Manchester region during the 1940s to 1960s then please get in touch. I’m writing a detailed history of the Manchester Corinthians to be published in 2024 and your information may help both mine and Steve Bolton’s research. For more on the Corinthians book see:
If you played an active part in developing women’s football prior to the FA ban then please get in touch by emailing gary@GJFootballArchive.com or follow me on twitter: @garyjameswriter or facebook.com/garyjames4
Gary James' Football Archive 