⚽️ Women's Football ⚽️

Believe it or not, it used to be more popular than the men's game!

Women's football matches once pulled bigger crowds than most men's games - sometimes more than 50,000.

In the 1920s the sport flourished with around 150 women's teams in England. But then the women's game was effectively banned, with the FA at the time saying the game of football is "quite unsuitable for females". It was another half century until women's football got back on its feet and a key reason it lags behind the men's game today.
On Christmas Day in 1917, 10,000 spectators watched two women's teams playing at Preston.
And when Dick Kerr's Ladies played St Helen's Ladies on Boxing Day 1920 they pulled in a crowd of 53,000 at Everton's Goodison Park ground, with thousands more fans locked outside. Everton men's highest attendance this season (2014/15) was 39,000.

On 5 December 1921, the Football Association banned women from playing on FA-affiliated pitches which meant stars like Lily Parr could no longer play at grounds with spectator facilities.
In 1971 the ban was finally lifted following the formation of the Women's Football Association (WFA) a couple of years earlier. Visit BBC for more information.