EPISODE 24

THE FOOTBALL TRAILBLAZERS

It's a warm, sunny Friday afternoon and we're photographing a group of youthful 60 and 70-somethings who look radiant in pieces from our high summer collection. So far, so normal for us. What's more unusual is the football stadium location, and the reason for shooting here. All six of these women were members of the 1972 England team. Fifty-three years on from their trailblazing match against Scotland, they remember the rough and ready early days of women's football in this country, and reflect on their legacy.

From left to right: (back row) Julia, Sue; (middle row) Jeannie, Lynda; (front row) Maggie, Pat.

It’s such a pleasure to meet you all. Can you tell us how you first got into football?

Jeannie: I put my first football boots on when I was eight years old and hardly took them off again. Football was everything for me. Everything. But life was hard in those days. Girls were banned from playing football. I still just can’t understand who can make that sort of decision. But I had a fantastic headmaster who after two days said ‘oh, just go and join the team’.

Julia: Where I lived, I was the only girl. And so if I wanted to go out to play, I had to play football. And then I suddenly realised that I was as good as the boys. I do remember at junior school, the caretaker saying ‘I've never seen a girl play football before’. That just stuck in my mind.

Lynda: It was my dad and my uncles that got me into football. When I was first born, I had to have callipers on my legs and they never thought I’d be able to walk properly. So my family put me on a pouffe and kicked a ball at me. So I could kick a football before I could walk. There was absolutely nothing for girls’ football when I was at school. I was lucky enough to play not in a boys’ team but in the playground with the boys.

And how did you get selected to play for England?

Lynda: After the ban, they decided to make an England team and we had to do lots and lots of trials.

Sue: Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd even get a trial.

Pat: It was brilliant. Me, Lynda and Maggie were all good friends, and we all got picked.

Lynda: But it was nothing like it is now. Ours was just another football match. It's not until later in life that you realise what you actually started.

What were some of the attitudes to women playing football back then?

Jeannie: It was a man's world in those days. You'd get comments thrown at you. ‘You girls should be in the kitchen. That's where you belong.’ Photos being taken not of the faces of the line-up, but the legs of the line-up.

Lynda: Some of the things that we got thrown at us at matches: ‘I've only come to watch you swap shirts’.

Sue: But it's a misconception that it was a battle of the sexes. A lot of men were really supportive and helped us. And we were all strong women. We didn't take no for an answer. If anybody said ‘you can't do that’, we'd say ‘yes, we can’. And we'd be out there proving that we can.

Maggie: What I remember of the match is it was freezing. It was in November.

Jeannie: No man would have played on that field. Nobody would. It was just one piece of ice.

Pat: All other games in Scotland were called off on that day, apart from ours and one of the men's games.

Julia: My then boyfriend, now husband of 51 years, drove up overnight to watch the game, and it was so cold, there was ice forming on the inside of the car windscreen.

Lynda: We were down 2-nil, and then we got one back, and then I scored one, and then Jeannie scored one, and we won 3-2. But after that, there was no reception, no nothing.

And what happened afterwards?

Maggie: I carried on playing football. I was one of the lucky ones that managed to be selected up until I had a maternity break. Then I managed to get selected again after having my first child, and then retired from football. Basically it was part of my life that I just parked. I parked it up in the loft and just got on with family life.

Sue: I was a sub in the 1972 game so after I got my chance to play in ’73, I joined the police. The chief constable had promised me that I could have time off to train and play for England but when it came down to it, there weren’t many women in the force so I wasn’t allowed the time off. I was Cheshire's first female police dog handler.

Jeannie: My football career just grew and grew. From the age of 8 to 32, it was just constant football. Just happy memories. Things I’ll never forget. I'm a big animal friend now. I've got about eight cats, 80 ducks and five dogs. Not all mine though!

How do you feel about the status that women’s football has now?

Julia: I never expected women's football to reach this level. We were shown round the Brighton ladies’ training facilities and it was just mind boggling. It's just out of this world compared with what we had, which was probably a little wooden hut with a dirty sink and a blocked toilet or we’d just get changed by the side of the pitch. That they can actually be footballers for a living. We’d never dream of that.

Maggie: It's absolutely great the way it’s progressed. And to know that I'm part of that journey.

Sue: When Jill Scott said that our hands are on that European trophy, I think that brought it home to us more than anything. When the team clapped us onto the training ground. Us old girls. I can even feel myself choking up again now. They’re just wonderful girls, that team that won in 2022. And they deserve everything. Everything.

How do you feel about the legacy you’ve left on football?

Julia: We were just 15 girls that played for England 50 years ago. But then you do think, well, perhaps we did do something a bit special, you know?

Jeannie: Yeah, I guess in a way, we are trailblazers.

Julia: We'll be in the record books and our names will live forever. I’ll always be cap number 13.

And finally, what has football taught you?

Jeannie: Doesn't matter who it is, if anyone says ‘you can't’. Just say ‘I can’. You can do anything.

Pat: Football has taught me that if you want something badly enough, you just go and get it. We've got a very special bond as a group of women and something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

Jeannie: Football changed my life. You can have all the money in the world, but you can't have my memories.