Dick, Kerr's Ladies F.C.

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 the works team of the company Dick, Kerr & Co.. The women, who later formed the team, working since 1914 in the company to produce ammunition for the British soldiers.

Contemporary reports indicate there was a women's game against a selection of the male workforce, which won the women. In the following years the team played a variety of charity matches to raise money for injured soldiers to collect. These games often came tens of thousands of spectators. Their performances brought a total of 70,000 British pounds (currently about 10 million pounds ) for charitable purposes a. Besides, more women's soccer teams were founded in the UK.

The highlight was a game on 26 December 1920 in Goodison Park to Liverpool. 53,000 people watched this game and more than 10,000 other people had to be sent home. This number of audience was surpassed on the island until 2012 at the Olympic Games in the Game UK against Brazil, which followed 70 584 spectators at London's Wembley Stadium.

The team's success brought the Football Association (FA) in distress. 1922 prohibited the discharge of the FA Women's Football games in the squares of its members. The FA justified this decision so that women would not be physically suitable for the sport of football and would jeopardize their fertility. In reality, the FA feared the women's football as a serious competition for the professional men's soccer.

Despite the ban, the Dick Kerr 's Ladies played more games on places of non -FA members. End of 1922, the team toured Canada and the United States. Once there, you had to find that there there were no women's football teams, so the team fought out nine games against men's teams. From these games, they won three, lost three and drawn three times played.

Later, the club renamed in Preston Ladies FC. 1961 disbanded the club. Ten years later, the FA overturned the ban on women's football and led gradually Official Competitions one.

Statistics

The Dick Kerr 's Ladies completed 828 games. Of which they won 758, played 46 times and losing 24 games.