May 12, 1984 England women play in their first European final
Carol Thomas started playing football illicitly, when the game was still banned by the Football Association. Thank goodness she did, because by the spring of 1984, then aged 28, the Hull-born right-back made history leading England out to their first European final.
If plain prejudice and ignorance had not generated the usual apathy among UK media outlets towards covering it appropriately, a mouthful of a boring name would have done as much damage. Played over two legs, the competition was called the European nations championship – note the lower case for the tournament’s latter two nouns – because fewer than half of Uefa’s membership participated, it could not be officially classified a European Championship and so it laboured under the designation “1984 European Competition for Women’s Football”.
When this year’s Euros kick off on the carpet at Old Trafford on July 6 on prime-time BBC One, the contrast for the trailblazers of 1984, who won all six of their group games, playing home ties at Gresty Park, Elm Park and a mudbath at Elland Road at the end of a season in which it had already hosted 42 football and rugby league matches, might well seem miraculous.
It was indeed a different game back then. Not only was it ignored but they played with a size-four football, two halves of 35 minutes each and no extra time in the result of a drawn two-legged knockout tie.
England’s manager, Martin Reagan – a former tank commander who had slogged through the Netherlands in the winter of 1944 to reach Germany – had appointed Thomas captain. In Reagan, the women’s game had a fantastic early male champion. A former winger with Middlesbrough, Shrewsbury and Norwich, he had enjoyed a modest career in the 1950s before moving into non-league management with March Town United and Goole Town. He combined his job with selling veterinary supplies in the north of England and never stopped proselytising.
“We are back-markers when it comes to enthusiasm, cash and facilities compared with other Europeans,” Reagan said, pointing out that Sweden had enrolled 357 girls in residential coaching camps. “In six or seven years our national squad will have to face the products of this hard and intensive work,” he wrote presciently.
Two of his squad, Kerry Davis and Debbie Bampton, would leave the amateur women’s game behind to move to Italy, where they earned £600 a month, but Thomas stayed steadfastly loyal to the domestic game, becoming the first English woman to win 50 caps before retirement in 1986 to have her first child. Thomas was elected to the English Football Hall of Fame in 2021 and awarded the British Empire Medal in the Platinum Jubilee Birthday Honours for services to the game and charity.
The away leg of the final, shown live on Swedish television, was watched by a crowd of over 5,500 at Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadium. England played well but went down 1-0 to Pia Sundhage’s goal. Kenilworth Road hosted the home leg on its porridgey pitch, a year before it was dug up and replaced with an even more notorious artificial one. Lennart Johansson of the Swedish FA was among the 2,567 who turned up to watch. The FA chairman, Bert Millichip, and secretary, Ted Croker, were nowhere to be seen.
Thomas’s bone-shaking tackle gave possession to her right-wing partner, the winger Linda Curl, who bombed on down the flank in the 31st minute to arc a shot over the goalkeeper into the top left corner, but neither side could find a winner in the remaining 39 minutes. Curl stepped up to take the first penalty in the shoot-out but this time Elisabeth Leidinge managed to stop it and, though Theresa Wiseman’s save from Helen Johansson levelled the shoot-out, Lorraine Hanson, stymied by the mud, scuffed her effort and Sweden were crowned European champions.
There was no rancour from England. The semi-professional Swedish players had given them some of their spare training kit and a Swedish company had stepped forward to sponsor the game at Luton.
Twenty-five years later, Hope Powell, an unused substitute at Kenilworth Road, guided England to a second European final – as manager. But, alas, Powell’s side capitulated to Germany 6-2, runners-up once again. Still, in both cases, the women beat the men in terms of making history – by 37 and 12 years respectively.
Rob Bagchi To encourage visible female role models that will inspire future generations, Carol Thomas is working with Linkedin, a national sponsor of the Uefa Women’s Euro 2022. Follow Carol on Linkedin and join the conversation*
England’s women beat England’s men in terms of making history – by 37 and 12 years respectively