2023-08-19 14:10:11
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17 minutes ago
Millions await the final match of the Women’s Soccer World Cup, Sunday, between England and Spain.
The tournament, which is being held in Australia and New Zealand, has seen more than 1.7 million tickets booked to attend the matches, and has become the most followed women’s tournament in history.
The tournament represented the peak of interest in women’s football, a sport that has been gaining momentum and flourishing over the past decades, although it was often left in the shadows and hidden in front of the football competitions played by men.
But in reality, women’s football was not always in the shadows, as there were some matches that attracted more than 50,000 spectators.
But the sport was later banned with the justification that it was not suitable for women, and it took nearly half a century for women’s football to recover.
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Former soccer player Lily Barr while practicing her javelin throw
Former footballer Lily Barr, who played as a winger, was the first professional footballer in history.
Lily played for the women’s soccer team of a factory in Preston, England, and most of the players worked in the factory during the First World War, and it was said that she was getting a salary of a number of packs of tobacco rolls, as she was an avid smoker.
Dick Kerr’s women’s team was the first women’s soccer team to wear shorts, and the first of its kind to travel outside Britain, on sporting tours.
Lilly became the first woman to have her portraits placed in the National Football History Museum, as well as the first to have a female soccer player statue made of her.
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Archive- A match for Dick Kerr’s women’s team
Women’s matches attract crowds of spectators
During the First World War, the sport witnessed rapid growth, following women were called up to work in factories, because men were involved in the war.
On New Year’s Day, 1917, 10,000 spectators attended a match between two women’s teams in Preston.
Another match between Dick Kerr and St. Helens, in the same festive period, in 1920, witnessed the presence of 50,000 spectators at Goodison Park, the stronghold of the English Everton team, while thousands remained outside the stadium, which did not accommodate them.
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A scene from an exhibition match in 1912 at Tottenham Hotspur in London
But at the end of 1921, the English Football Association decided to ban the sport, claiming that it was not suitable for women, and therefore prominent players such as Lily might no longer play in stadiums equipped for spectators to attend.
In 1971 the ban was lifted, nearly two years following the first English women’s football association was founded.
Thus, women and girls can look forward to football as a career.
Many followed reports on the Women’s World Cup tournaments during the seventies of the last century, while television channels carried extensive coverage of the 1989 tournament.
In 1997, the FA announced its intention to comprehensively change the sport and develop it at the professional level.
Statistics show that there are regarding 3.4 million girls and women playing football in England.
While the final match of the European Nations Cup, Euro 2022, between the English and Italian teams, was the most women’s match in history that attracts spectators in the stadium, whose number exceeded 87 thousand spectators.
It was in that match that England won football’s first major women’s title.
Since that moment, the sports infrastructure has improved dramatically, with higher salaries and longer contracts for female players.
As for the televised broadcast, the semi-final match, in the ongoing tournament between England and Australia, was the highest in terms of viewership, with more than 7 million viewers.
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