Bid to score with beautiful game’s history in book

A FIRST FOR WOMEN’S MATCHES

AN AUTHOR from Loughborough is hoping to score with her latest book – the first ever complete history of women’s football, from Victorian games in 1881 to plans for England to host the Euro Finals in 2022.

Professor Jean Williams is a leading academic author on women’s football across the world, having written books funded by FIFA and UEFA, as well as books based on the British, such as A Game For Rough Girls (published in 2003).

In The History of Women’s Football, she demonstrates how the women’s game began as a professional sport, and has only recently returned to these professional roots in the UK.

This is because there was a 50-year Football Association “ban” on women playing on pitches affiliated to the governing body in England.

The other British associations followed suit. So why was women’s football banned in 1921?

Why did it take until 1969 for a Women’s Football Association to form? And why did it take until 1995 for England to qualify for a Women’s World Cup?

Answers to these key questions can be discovered in the book which features personal accounts of the players who defied the ban, at home and abroad, along with the personal costs, and rewards, of being footballing pioneers.

A spokesman for publishers Pen & Sword said: “Prof Williams has been a consultant to The FIFA Museum in Zurich, The National Football Museum, Manchester and the FA at St George’s Park and Wembley.

“An average, but enthusiastic football player, Jean was more likely to win her club’s ‘most improved player’ than national distinction. Having reunited England players from official and unofficial England national teams, including several reunions at National Football Museum, Jean has access to many, diverse interviewees, memorabilia and images to tell this story.

“The eldest player she is currently in contact with, Alice Elliott, began playing for Manchester Corinthians in 1949, aged 14.

“Leah Caleb was only 13 when she travelled to Mexico in 1971 to play in an unofficial Women’s World Cup.

“Mary Phillip became the first Black woman to captain England in 2003.

“It is these, and other stories, that Jean believes will bring the book alive.”

■ The book has been published in hardback for £25.