| Dick, Kerr Ladies Boxing Day match | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The match took place at Goodison Park (pictured in 1905) | |||||||
| |||||||
| Date | 27 December 1920 (1920-12-27) | ||||||
| Venue | Goodison Park, Liverpool | ||||||
| Player of the Match | Alice Kell | ||||||
| Referee | Stan Peers | ||||||
| Attendance | 53,000 | ||||||
On 27 December 1920,[a]Dick, Kerr Ladies beat St Helens Ladies 4–0 atGoodison Park in front of 53,000 spectators, an attendance figure for a women's clubfootball match that would not be exceeded for 99 years, and for a women's club football match in the United Kingdom that would not be exceeded for 103 years.
Threatened by the continued popularity of women's football after male players returned from theFirst World War, theFootball Association would shortly afterwards banwomen's football in England, a restriction that lasted 50 years.
Boxing Day football has been a popular institution in the United Kingdom since the early days ofthe sport.[3][4] During theFirst World War, when men could typically not play football, people sought a way for the sport to continue; teams were formed comprising women, who had taken the place of men in other jobs. The most popular team wasDick, Kerr Ladies, a team from theDick, Kerr & Co. munitions factory inPreston, with most of the players being factory workers.[5][6][7][8] Dick, Kerr Ladies' first match had been onChristmas Day 1917, with 10,000 spectators; the next day (Boxing Day), twice as many people showed out atGrosvenor Park to watch a representative England vs Ireland women's match.[7]
In 1920, Dick, Kerr Ladies were considered the best team in the country, with St Helens Ladies the second-best.[9] Dick, Kerr Ladies were also immensely popular and St Helens Ladies could be considered their local rivals.[7]
The match took place atGoodison Park, a stadium inLiverpool that had no official capacity at the time, but had held a record ~60,000 spectators in 1910 for the men'sFA Cup Final replay;[10][11] the stadium had seen 35,000 spectators for its 1920 Christmas Day match between its resident men's team,Everton, and London teamArsenal.[12] Later on Boxing Day 1920, the (men's)Everton Reserves played local rivalsSouthport at Goodison, to a crowd of just over 5,000.[13]
A reported 53,000 people were allowed into the stadium for the women's 1920 Boxing Day match, with 14,000 more away fans prevented from entering.[8][14][15][12][16] The players were so popular that a police escort was required to help them through the crowds of fans outside as they made their way into the stadium, withBritish-Pathé sending cameras to record the game from the touchlines;[8] despite this, the crowd had not been expected to be so large, with additional turnstiles needing to be opened to cope.[15]
The match was kicked off byElla Retford, a popular stage actress who was headlining at theLiverpool Empire Theatre at the time.[17] Dick, Kerr's starting striker,Florrie Redford, missed her train to the match and was replaced in the line-up by her usual attacking partnerJennie Harris, who scored the opening goal. CaptainAlice Kell, right-back, moved to play as a forward in place of Redford for the second half and scored ahat-trick, with the match ending 4–0 in favour of Dick, Kerr Ladies. St Helens' goalkeeper, Edith Waine, worked hard to keep more balls out. The players were praised, as was the attendance and the amount raised for charity.[7][15][12][13]
| Dick, Kerr Ladies | 4–0 | St Helens Ladies |
|---|---|---|
| Report |
         Dick, Kerr Ladies | St Helens Ladies |
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The match was held to raise money for injured soldiers,[8][18] specifically for the Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers Association. It achieved £3,100 (over £135,250 in 2018), a record gate income for a women's game.[1][2] After the match, theLord Mayor of Liverpool presented the Dick, Kerr team with a medal in recognition of their fundraising efforts.[15]
Unsettled by the women's football match attracting more spectators than men's clubs after the latter had returned from war (the1920 men's FA Cup final saw 50,018 spectators),the Football Association (FA) took steps to put men's football back in the spotlight.[8][12] Proposed reasons for the FA's discomfort with women's football include: lower crowds for men's matches on the same day as women's threatening the legitimacy of men's football;[6] large crowds encouraging women's suffrage campaigns; the idea that sports, and otherwise continuing men's jobs after the war, diminished women's femininity;[18] the charity fundraising being too close to an organised labour movement for comfort;[17] the FA believing large crowds made women playing football "too showbiz"; and concern that increased spectators encouraged women footballers to play too rough for their supposedly fragile bodies.[6] On 5 December 1921, the FA banned women from using official pitches, relegating them "onto muddy fields and into obscurity"[6] until 1971.[18][19] The FA reportedly explained their decision was made due to the women's clubs, with matches typically being played for charity, not donating enough money to charity.[18]
Leah Williamson: During the war, First World War, the women started playing and they were really, really successful—
Olivia Colman: Didn't they have as many spectators as the men's game?
Williamson: Yeah, [...] Dick, Kerr Ladies. Incredible.
Colman: What happened?
Williamson: So, basically, when the men got back, would we call it jealousy, or, they were a little bit threatened, that maybe the women's [game] would be such a success, so the FA decided to ban it.
— Leah Williamson, who captained theEngland women's team to their first international title in 2022, discussing the impact with actressOlivia Colman on the 2022 New Year's Eve special ofThe Graham Norton Show[20]
No women's club football match exceeded the attendance of the 1920 Boxing Day match until 99 years later on 17 March 2019, when Spanish league leadersAtlético Madrid playedBarcelona at theMetropolitano Stadium in Madrid in front of 60,739 spectators.[14][b] The record has since been superseded twice more, both times becoming absolute attendance records for a women's football match (exceeding audiences for international fixtures), and both times by matches held in 2022 at theCamp Nou in Barcelona.[c][23] The 1920 record was unbeaten in the United Kingdom[24] for 103 years, eventually overcome whenArsenal hostedWolfsburg at theEmirates Stadium in London on 1 May 2023 with a crowd of 60,063 spectators.[25]
A 100th anniversary celebration of the match was set to take place atDeepdale, Preston's stadium, in 2020, but had to be cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic; a virtual celebration was organised instead.[12]
