Women’s Football and the Scottish Football Association

In this exclusive guest post, Stuart Gibbs describes the response of the Scottish Football Association (SFA) to the ban on women’s football south of the border in England in 1921.

The 1921 embargo placed by the FA on affiliated clubs hosting women’s matches is well known. The Scottish Football Association is often depicted as closely following their southern neighbours, this article examines the SFA’s response to women’s football and how it differed from the attitudes practiced south of the border. 

Women’s Football and the SFA

On 5 December 1921, at a committee meeting of the Football Association, a ruling was passed prohibiting affiliated clubs from staging or hosting women’s football matches. This is seen as an emotive moment in the history of the game and paved the way for other football associations around the world to pursue a similar path. The Scottish Football Association is often depicted as closely following the FA’s move but an analysis of the SFA’s approach reveals a rather different story. Over a period of 55 years the Scottish Association lurched from a detached disinterest to draconian measures. The initial attitude shown by the Scottish Association to women’s football, following the FA’s 1921 ruling was reported by the Daily Record, and the copy may come as a surprise to scholars:  

There is probably more wisdom in the indifference of the Scots legislators than in the threatened veto of their southern confreres.  The English Association’s veto will probably have an effect the very opposite of that intended.  Women footballers can afford to snap their fingers at the Association and develop the game under an association of their own.¹

The new body predicted by the Record, the English Ladies Football Association, met for the first time in Liverpool within days of the FA ruling. Women’s football in Scotland, however, continued as it had done before. John Chatham, a board member for Clyde FC, secured the use of Shawfield for local side Rutherglen Ladies and organised his own competitions. On 14 October 1922, Rutherglen took on Hey’s Brewery Girls at the ground with Chatham acting as match referee. The final of the Female Football Championship was also held at Shawfield during the spring of 1923 with Rutherglen beating Ayrshire Ladies 4-0.² When Dick, Kerr visited the ground to play Rutherglen in the autumn of 1923 they left on the wrong side of a 2-0 defeat. Rutherglen Ladies were subsequently declared ‘World Champions’.³

So far, the authorities in Scotland were paying little attention to the women’s game, an illustration of this came during Dick, Kerr and Dumfries Ladies’ 1923 summer tour. The Burnley player Davie Taylor was warned by the FA against acting as resident referee for the matches. When asked what action would be taken against linesmen Alec McNair of Celtic and Tom Scott of Falkirk, it was remarked that the SFA took little cognisance of this sort of thing.⁴ Then, out of the blue, in 1924 the Scottish association sent the following notice: 

Recommended – Aberdeen FC be informed, this Association does not approve of clubs arranging, or sponsoring or letting grounds for ladies’ football matches.⁵

Raith Rovers were issued with a similar communicate later that year suggesting that the Scottish Association were establishing their own ‘ban’. However, Rutherglen Ladies’ summer tour of 1924 involved appearances at Tannidice, Links Park, and Brechin City, without any apparent sanction for the clubs involved. Another instance came in the spring of 1925 when Queen of the South received an SFA direction ahead of a proposed match between Dick, Kerr and Femina Paris.⁶ As a result the match was moved from Queen’s Palmerston ground to Balmoral Park, yet days earlier, the sides met at Rugby Park and Kilmarnock FC did not receive any sanction from the association. The approach of Scotland’s governing body’s seemed confused.

During the 1930s, the women’s game continued without any comment from the SFA. Edinburgh City Girls formed in 1937 quickly became the country’s premier side and at Berwick Rangers Sheilfield ground they beat Foly Ladies to claim the Scottish Championship.⁷ The following year the City Girls along with a reformed Rutherglen Ladies and Dick Kerr’s successor side, Preston Ladies took part in the Women’s football championship of the World. At St Bernards ground, the Gymnasium, the City Girls recorded a 7-0 win against Rutherglen and followed this up with a more impressive result against Preston Ladies when Linda Clements scored two goals in a 5-2 win. In the final played a few weeks later in Falkirk, a 7-0 demolition of Glasgow Ladies wrapped up the title for the City Girls.⁸

The resident referee for the matches was Eustace Elliot. He first came to Edinburgh from Sierra Leone as a medical student and by the in the late 1930s was a prominent official in the East of Scotland Junior leagues.⁹ Mainstream figures from Scottish football taking the role of match officials was common place, during the war years players such as Alex Venters, Jerry Dawson and the Scotland International George Young refereed matches. This was in contrast to England were County FA officials were sanctioned or even removed from their post as a result of involvement with women’s football. 

With the commencement of hostilities, Linda Clements and Mary Leslie, prominent players with the Edinburgh City Girls, decided to reform their old side under the name Edinburgh Lady Dynamos.  The Dynamos’ match against Bolton Ladies at their new ground – New Meadowbank – attracted over 17,000 spectators. One headline read: Came to jeer, Stayed to cheer.  Linda Clements however, noted the contradictory attitude of the SFA in a press interview:

The SFA don’t recognise us – they don’t like us playing but we shall carry on, and soon there will be many more women’s teams in the country.  Already there are more than six in Scotland. ¹⁰

The Dynamos played numerous matches the following year against Shotts Ladies, Kelso, Galston from Ayrshire and a new Rutherglen side, workers from the town’s EKCO electronics plant. Great excitement was generated by the arrival of Kent Ladies, the previous year they had recorded a shock 3-0 win against Preston Ladies so anticipation for the match was high. At Meadowbank however the side struggled and the Dynamos ran out with a comfortable 5-2 win. There was a 4-0 score line in the return fixture at Chatham, and the Dynamos also recorded a creditable 2-2 draw against Bolton on their home patch.¹¹ The Scottish Association, however, had taken notice especially at the crowds attracted to women’s matches. The prospect of an expanding women’s game caused alarm and moves were afoot to bring in the sort of sanctions the FA had introduced 26 years earlier. 

The New Meadowbank ground was run by Edinburgh City Council and the main tenant was the senior league side Leith Athletic. Leith used the ground as temporary base while Old Meadowbank underwent refurbishment and continuance of this arrangement was used by the SFA as a means to extricate Edinburgh Dynamos from the ground. When the return fixture with Bolton Ladies was discussed by the Parks Sub-committee a performance licence was refused with the match was moved to Woods Park in Portobello.¹² On 27 April 1948, another attempt was made to play at New Meadowbank but Edinburgh Council once again refused a performance licence. Mr A.T. Harrison the Council’s Depute superintendent in his statement to the committee gave a strong indication that Leith Athletic were used as a bargaining tool in discussions with SFA secretary George Graham:

All grounds that allowed women’s football would be banned and as such if they allowed women footballers at Meadowbank they could not get any other type of football.¹³

Confusion over a proposed charity match in Aberdeen prompted the SFA in the autumn of 1949 to issue a circular to all clubs stating that they were prohibited from hosting women’s football matches. The Dynamos continued into the early 1950s playing at Woods Park and other venues, Over the following years women’s football found a place in the factory and works setting. The Hoover factory at Cambuslang, Johnny Walkers and Jersey Kapwood all produced sides and one match played at Johnstone’s Keanie Park in 1961 between Hillington Ladies and the Red & White Rockets attracted a crowd of 7,000.¹⁴ Venues for fixtures could still be found but a perennial problem was finding referees to officiate at matches, an issue which was not improved with the formation of the Scottish Women’s Football Association.  The SFA continued with their embargo even as other associations embraced the women’s game in the early 1970s. When the SWFA was formed in 1972 the SFA were the only governing body in Europe holding out against recognising women’s football.¹⁵

In a bid to gain acceptance for the women’s game, Dunfermline’s Provost Les Wood approached the maverick Fife MP Willie Hamilton to see if he could help. Hamilton agreed and the proposed Sex Discrimination Bill which came before the House of Commons in the early spring of 1974, seemed the ideal vehicle in which to challenge the SFA’s stance.¹⁶ As the bill was being debated it became clear that the organisation’s stance on women’s football was untenable, indeed the paragraph added at the committee stage covering sport, could almost have been written for the association.  

Nothing in Parts II to IV shall, in relation to any sport, game or other activity of a competitive nature where the physical strength, stamina or physique of the average woman puts her at a disadvantage to the average man, render unlawful any act related to participation of a person as a competitor in events involving that activity which are confined to competitors of one sex.¹⁷  

With this amendment it was obvious that the game was up. The bill did not become law until the spring of 1975 but in the late summer of 1974, the SFA’s general proposes committee voted to lift the restrictions on the women’s game. The following brief statement appeared in the association minutes for August 29^th 1974: 

It was agreed to give recognition to woman’s football.¹⁸

Even with official acceptance, women’s football made slow progress in Scotland, and frustrated at the rate of development many of the games top players, opted to play abroad. Matters were not helped when the SWFA in 1975 barred sine die Edna Neillis, Rose Reilly and Elsie Cook for protests over the appointment of Bill Cransten as Scotland manager and for playing professionally. During the 1990s several initiatives were designed to develop girls’ and women’s football and following the 1992 ‘Heading for the Future’ conference the SWFA were invited to take office space at the SFA headquarters. In 1998 they became an affiliate of the SFA. Since the SWFA re-branding as ‘Scottish Women’s Football’ in 2003, qualification has been achieved to Scotland’s first major tournaments in 2017 and 2019 as well as winning the Pinatar Cup, the country’s first trophy since the late 1970s. It can be argued that progress is still slow but today the SWF have offices at Hampden Park the heart of the Scottish game, a position that, in 1947, would have seemed inconceivable. 

References

1. Women and Football, Daily Record December 5^th 1921, P 8

2. Rutherglen Ladies v Ayrshire Ladies, Rutherglen Reformer, May 4^th 1923 P 1
3. “Soccer” Girls in Glasgow, Daily Record, September 15^th 1923, P 16
4. Female Footer Query, Daily Record, August 1^st 1923, P 12
5. Football Notes, Leven Advertiser & Wemyss Gazette, February 7^th 1924, P 7 
6. Football, The Scotsman, March 12^th 1925, P 11
7. Women’s Football Match, Berwick Journal, July 21^st 1938, P 4
8. 10,000 See Girl Footballers, Sunday Post, June 18^th 1939, P 27 & World Championship at Carmuirs, Falkirk Herald July 8^th 1939, P 7
9. Two Unbeaten Centuries in One Game, Sunday Post May 21^st 1939, P 31
10. “Came to Jeer, Stayed to Cheer,” cutting from Mary Leslie’s Scrapbook, dated 1946. 
11. Dynamos Hold Bolton Women, Bolton Standard, July 10^th 1947, P 3
12. Men before Women, Edinburgh Evening News, July 15^th 1947, P 5
13. Frown on Women Footballers, Dundee Courier, April 28^th 1948, P 3.
14. Women’s Football Team Games, Evening Times, May 3^rd 1961, P 9
15. Women’s Soccer National at Ravenscraig Stadium, Greenock Telegraph, November 13^th 1972 P 5
16. MP Fights for Lady Players, Glenrothes Gazette, June 6^th 1974, P 7
17. Sex Discrimination Act 1975, Chapter 65, Part V, Paragraph 44 Sport etc, P 28
18. Executive & General Purposes Committee, Minutes of Scottish Football Association, August 29^th 1974, P 64