Dick Kerr's ladies
The Dick Kerr's Ladies are a former women's football team from Preston ( England ). The team is one of the pioneers of women's football.
history
The Dick Kerr's Ladies were founded as a factory team for the Dick, Kerr & Co. company. The women who later made up the team had worked in the company since 1914, making ammunition for the British soldiers.
According to contemporary reports, there was a game between the women and a selection of the male workforce, which the women won. In the following years, the team played a large number of charity games to raise money for injured soldiers. Tens of thousands of spectators often came to these games. Their performances brought in a total of £ 70,000 (now around £ 10 million) for charity. In addition, other women's football teams were formed across the UK.
The highlight was a game on December 26, 1920 at Goodison Park , Liverpool . 53,000 spectators saw this game and over 10,000 more people had to be sent home. This number of spectators was only surpassed on the island in 2012 at the Olympic Games in the match between Great Britain and Brazil , which saw 70,584 spectators at London's Wembley Stadium .
The team's success put the Football Association (FA) in dire straits. In 1922, the FA banned women's football matches from being held on the seats of its members. The FA justified this decision by stating that women were physically unsuitable for football and that their fertility was at risk. In reality, the FA feared women's football as serious competition for professional men's football.
Despite the ban, the Dick Kerr's Ladies continued to play games in non-FA member courts. In late 1922, the team toured Canada and the United States . Once there, it was found that there were no women's soccer teams there, so the team played nine games against men's teams. Of these games, they won three, lost three and drew three times.
The club later renamed itself Preston Ladies FC. In 1961 the association dissolved. Ten years later, the FA lifted the women's football ban and gradually introduced official competitions.
statistics
The Dick Kerr's Ladies played 828 games. They won 758, drew 46 times and lost 24 games.