No barriers for female referees

WATCHING the FA Women’s Cup Final played at Wembley last Sunday was a reminder that 100 years ago, in 1921, the FA tried to put a stop to women playing football in this country and made it’s infamous comment, ‘We don’t think it is a suitable game for women to play’.

They couldn’t stop it completely but they banned it being played on the grounds of any affiliated club.

It was a strange decision in some ways because there were many times that they drew bigger crowds than men’s football.

There was a famous occasion during the 1880s when more than 50,000 turned up to watch a women’s match at Goodison Park, which was more than for any Everton match that season.

Many women got the taste for it by playing in teams organised by factories where they worked.

It wasn’t just women players that the FA were against, they wouldn’t allow any women to become referees.

We had one woman in Reading who attended our training course at Reading Referees Society but, although she came top in the exam, we couldn’t register her as a referee.

The society therefore had a special certificate made to present to her.

In fact she was a teacher and wanted to be able to referee the school matches, which of course the FA couldn’t prevent.

In the 1980s, the FA removed the ban on women playing at registered clubs’ grounds.

It was at this time that as Chairman of the Reading Referees Association, I invited the secretary of the England Women’s Football Association to be a guest speaker at one of our monthly meetings.

I was disappointed and annoyed that when it was her turn to speak, half the members walked out. Women’s football was still not wholly accepted.

It was also at that time that I started to referee women’s matches, which were played on Sunday.

I have to say they were enjoyable. Within a few years The FA took over complete control of women’s football in this country,

The problem was that their earlier decision meant that women’s football and refereeing were behind many other more enlightened countries like, perhaps surprisingly, the US.

We are beginning to catch up. For example, a woman refereed a Football League match this season for the first time, whereas in countries like Brazil this happened 14 or 15 years ago, even Israel beat us to it.

We now have one of our referees, Rebecca Welch as an Elite FIFA referee and others are taking European Cup games. Probably the best assistant referee in the Premier League is Sian Massey-Ellis.

The good thing for any young women thinking of becoming a referee is that there are now no barriers.