In their day they were bigger than Beckham the working class factory girls who played in front of vast crowds throughout Britain and became celebrities across the world. But they threatened the entire male-dominated bastion of 20th-century football. So the FA plotted to shut them down... Women s football began to flourish among factory workers during the First World War, and by 1920 had become a major spectator sport. Yet in the success of ladies teams and the celebrity of their leading players lay the seeds of their destruction. A year later, the men of the Football Association, alarmed by the huge popularity of the women s game, met behind closed doors and, after a brief debate, banned women s football from all professional grounds. Women s Football: The Secret History tells the extraordinary story of the time when women ruled the football world. With recollections from the last surviving member of the leading factory team during its glory years, backed by remarkable contemporary photographs, here is the missing chapter in football s history its last great secret. It is a tale of self-interested men with power, wealth, and a fiefdom to protect. But above all, it is the story of girls with balls.
