gauntlet:

Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC in 1921, the season they drew a crowd of 53,000 to Goodison Park. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

And then, on 5 December 1921, the Football Association put an end to all that, banning women from playing on FA-affiliated pitches (effectively, all grounds with spectator facilities) with the assertion that “the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged”. It is hard not to suspect this was, at least in part, a defensive move made by male officials who felt threatened by the success of their female counterparts. And so the women’s game was allowed to wither on the vine, missing out on half a century of development while the men’s leagues established ever stronger roots.

English Football: when women ruled the pitch