An Unsuitable Game for Ladies: A Century of Women's Football


Interesting small exhibition at the British Library looking at the history of women’s football in Great Britain.

The show was timed to coincide with the Women’s World Cup and consisted of good commentary boards and display cases of books and ephemera. I hadn’t realised how most major towns had a team up to 1921 when the Football Association banned women from playing. A ban that was only lifted in 1970.

I loved the section on these early days including a photo of Nettie Honeyballs (a pseudonym) and details of a North v South matched played in London to a crowd of 12000. It then explained how, post the 1966 England men’s win in the World Cup, and with the rise of feminism, people began to question the ban. There was a nice collection of ephemera from this time including minutes of the first AGM of the Women’s Football Association.

The last section brought things up to date by looking at the Women’s World Cup which began in 1991 and of course included a copy of the dvd of “Bend it Like Beckham”!

Closes 1 September 2019

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