Women's Football in England

Association football is the unofficial national sport of England. While women's football has been played in England for over a century, it has only been in the 1990s that the game has seen a large increase in female players, as well as in female spectators, culminating in England hosting the Women's European Championships in 2005.


In the period from early in the First World War until the Football Association's ban on women playing football on the grounds of its affiliates in 1922 (which lasted for 40 years) women's football was very popular and a true rival to the men's game. One match featuring the Dick, Kerr's Ladies team from Preston, played at Goodison Park, Liverpool on Boxing Day 1920, attracted a crowd of 53,000 with another 10,000 - 15,000 reported turned away because the ground was full.

Today, the FA runs directly the top women's competitions. The most significant national competition is the national cup, the FA Women's Cup, followed by the top national league, the Women's Premiership. The Premiership has recently increased in importance because its winner is the only English representative allowed in Europe. Women's football also has its own Premier League Cup, limited to the teams in the Premiership and the regional second divisions. To promote women's football, the FA allows cup finals to be held at various men's Premiership/Football League stadia throughout the country (as opposed to men's finals which are usually held at the national stadiums); for the 2006-07 season, the League Cup final took place at Scunthorpe United's Glanford Park, and the FA Cup final will take place at Nottingham Forest's City Ground.