Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

65 ‘Too much emphasis on personal comfort’ and with technical and graceful proficiency. The history of women’s football highlights the sticky wicket cricketers were playing on. Considered more of a masculine, working-class pastime due to the aggression, endurance and physical contact it required, the sport was widely condemned by middle-class women, educational institutions and medical professionals as unsuitable on medical and cultural grounds. Nevertheless, the sport did gain popularity with working-class girls and a number of workplace teams were formed from the 1890s. The large influx of women into the workforce during the Great War accelerated this development, and by the early 1920s around 150 clubs competed nationally. The most famous was Dick, Kerr’s Ladies, a Preston-based engineering firm which was able, in 1920, to draw 53,000 spectators to a single match at Goodison Park. 21 Matches were usually played for wartime charities, and were successful in raising thousands of pounds. However, many believed the game was too masculine, in terms of its dress and physicality, and that women undermined the game’s social prestige. Fearful of a rival spectator base, the Football Association unanimously passed a resolution banning women from use of its grounds in December 1921, simply stating football was ‘quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.’ While it took a couple years before the ban was fully in place, and players were defiant in the face of the decision, it spelled ruin for most teams. Successful sides like Stoke Ladies disbanded by 1923, just a year after Stoke Ladies Football Club pictured with the English Ladies Cup and two other trophies, c. 1922. Like many women’s cricket teams, they first started during the First World War and found continued success after it. They rejected any ‘feminised’ playing attire, adopting the same outfit as male players. (National Football Museum)