It could have been a giant leap for women’s football
Sue Lopez outjumps Geoff Hurst during a publicity shoot for a women’s World Cup in england that never was.
‘I didn’t realise I’d be doing this when I went along,’ says Lopez of the picture. ‘I said to him: “Don’t jump too high,” and he didn’t, he was fantastic. He really wanted england to stage a women’s World Cup.’
It was 1972 and Hurst’s enthusiasm for women’s football saw him contact the pioneering Lopez, not long returned from playing semi-professionally in Italy for AS Roma.
Lopez was the go-to star but not even her presence and the clout of Hurst — with fellow World Cup winners and West Ham stars Bobby Moore and Martin peters in support — could persuade the authorities to host a World Cup in england that could have been transformational for the women’s game.
‘We would be a lot further in terms of development today than where we are if that had happened,’ Lopez says.
‘Imagine if all of us from my generation had been part of something like that? Instead we had to go to little clubs and little grounds and beg to play — and pay them. Countries like Sweden, Norway, they moved ahead.’
In 1972 women’s football in england was in a struggle for recognition. As the year dawned, england did not have an official national team and the FA was still operating a ban introduced in 1921 stopping women playing on their grounds. Talents such as Lopez were frustrated.
They were also fighting, and had begun to get organised in a manner Lopez recognised from her time in Italy.
It had been men such as Hurst who kick- started a surge in female interest via the World Cup success in 1966.
In Lopez’s native Hampshire, this saw the formation of a women’s league and, at the end of their 1966- 67 season, a local council worker in Deal, Kent — Arthur Hobbs — planned a women’s tournament to be played at Deal Town.
This was rather less impressive than the tournament in Italy two years later where Lopez was spotted by Roma, but it was a start.
Yet, it turned out to be a false one, as Deal Town were affiliated to the Kent FA, who were affiliated to the FA, who ensured the 1921 ban was enforced. The tournament was moved to the nearby Betteshanger Colliery pitch. But people such as Hobbs and Lopez would not be put off. By 1969 a Women’s FA had been established, independent of the FA. In January 1970, the FA’s ban on women was rescinded. And then, in late 1972, a first official england international was staged.
Gradually, under pressure from UEFA, the FA’s attitude softened, yet it was 1978 before england’s women played an international match at a top-flight ground, against Belgium at The Dell, Southampton.
Southampton was where Lopez and the women’s league had begun and she was playing in Southampton’s women’s team when she was spotted by Roma and Torino at an invitational tournament in Turin in November 1969.
The four- team competition was marketed as an unofficial World Cup and Southampton were treated as england.
Italy beat Denmark in the final, and ‘england’ beat France in the third place play-off. There were crowds of 10,000.
‘We felt elated,’ Lopez says. ‘It was remarkable to find everything taken more seriously. It was how we imagined the professional male players were treated, with nice hotels, beautiful venues and respect, especially from the press.’
After Turin, Lopez received various offers and chose Roma, who were part of the recently established Italian women’s league.
It contained clubs such as Napoli and Fiorentina, as well as Roma and Lazio from the capital. The league ran from April to November and Lopez scored on her debut against piacenza.
SHE was 26, loving Italy and the respect and exposure accorded the women’s game. ‘ The whole atmosphere was wonderful,’ she says. ‘In the newspaper Corriere dello
Sport, there was a page on women’s football — all the results. our game was accepted as a sport in Italy, there was recognition.
‘The Italians had some fantastic players, we got decent crowds.’
But Lopez returned to Southampton because she wanted to play for england — which she did 22 times. In 1984 she was part of the england team that reached the final of the inaugural european championships. england lost the two- legged final to Sweden on penalties at Kenilworth Road.
Whereas the first leg in Gothenburg had been shown live on Swedish TV, there was little press or broadcast interest in england. Then, 10 years later, the WFA was incorporated into the FA and Lopez became one of its officials.
She retains an independent mind, though, and today, at 72, views the increasing profile of the women’s game here with curiosity. She thinks of what might have been for her generation. They were pioneers and Sue Lopez leapt as high as any.