Women’s Football During World War One

Prior to the World War One, women’s football had a rocky existence. The earliest organised game seems to have taken place on 9 May 1881 when a team calling themselves England played a side named Scotland at Easter Road, Edinburgh. Scotland won 3-0. A London-based team, the British Ladies Football Club (BLFC), was founded in 1895. The BLFC also played in Scotland and the north-east but it only lasted two years. However, women’s football grew rapidly between 1917 and 1922 in Britain largely as a result of the changing status of women in society and new opportunities for a more varied range of work, with attendant higher pay and a right to leisure.