International Women’s Day – Manchester Football

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.

Here’s a story about Jan Lyons, a Mancunian who went to play for Juventus in the 1970s: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2020/12/26/the-italian-job-a-manchester-corinthians-journey/

Here’s a piece I’ve written on the Manchester Corinthians: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/02/14/pioneering-mancunian-women/

A piece on games between Manchester City and Manchester United: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/02/11/manchester-city-v-manchester-united/

The story of Manchester City’s relaunch: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/01/24/manchester-citys-womens-team-the-relaunch/

The earliest film of Manchester City Ladies/Women: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/01/22/manchester-city-ladies-the-earliest-film/

An academic article on my Manchester City Women project: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/01/07/establishing-women-in-sports-history-manchester-city-football-club/

Here’s Steve Bolton’s guest blog on Manchester Ladies from 1940s/50s. Part One: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/02/26/guest-blog-steve-bolton-the-pioneering-manchester-ladies-part-one/

Part Two: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/03/05/guest-blog-steve-bolton-the-pioneering-manchester-ladies-part-two/

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.

Guest Blog – Steve Bolton: The Pioneering Manchester Ladies Part One

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:

Part two will be published soon.

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 women and football in Manchester and your information may help both mine and Steve Bolton’s research.

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