The Forgotten XI

I recently sat down with Margaret Shepherd and Margaret Whittney to talk about their time with the Corinthians, what it was like playing under teh ban and the current state of Women's professional football.

Today is the 100 year anniversary of the English FA's ban on women's soccer. Afghanistan has a National Women's Team (had?). This is the story of the Lions of Kabul. 

Did you ever wonder how FIFA got so big and so wealthy? What if it wasn't just because football is popular? What if it was just one guy's evil plot?

In 1970, Mexico's Women's Team shocked Europe in the 1970 unofficial Women's World Cup to place third. How had they done so well? How did they get so good? This is the story of La Tri.

Petra Landers played in and won the unofficial Women's World Cup for Germany in 1981. She later helped set the World Record for highest altitude football match, and women's football in Africa is part of her new projects.

In 2003, Germans were asked: 'Who is the most influential German of all time?' A huge number believed it was Sophie Scholl.

This is her story.

Maybe you're wondering who your host is. Maybe you're wondering why this guy is so interested in Women's Football. Well, now you'll know.

Pomies played first with Femina, then Dick Kerr's, but that was just the begining of her amazing story.

Before women played football in Scotland, one little girl was determined to play. Rose Reilly should be a house-hold name.

What would you do if you found out that your grand mother had been a famous footballer? Stephen Bolton discovered exactly that just a few years ago. Follow him @STEPHEN11981196 on twitter.

Marta Vieira da Silva is perhaps the greatest female footballer ever. But she wasn't always that. Once, she was a shy young woman. This is her letter to her younger self.

Be safe, wash your hands.

If these links don't work, try anchor.fm/chris-mcglynn

In 1949, a man founded a women’s football club to help his disabled daughter. That team would go on to conquer the world and attain international stardom.

Yes, women went to jail for the Beautiful Game. And you'll never guess where....

Be safe, wash your hands.

The Industrial Revolution changed the world. In Chile, the Industrial Revolution changed the face of football forever. 

Be safe, wash your hands.

The first US WNT got paid about $10 a day to play matches. Things got a little better in the 1990’s, but the team couldn’t live on those wages. Then the USWNT took matters in to their own hands. This is the back story of the US WNT’s lawsuit against US Soccer.

Be safe, wash your hands.

Can a single law, just one sentence, change the world? One law, in one country, did change the world. Title IX is the only law in the United States that recognizes the rights of women, but it started a revolution around the world.

Be safe, wash your hands.

The Danish Club BK Femina won the first Women’s World Cup in 1970. Their story is in many ways similar to the USWNT’s story. Unappreciated and unrecognized, they soldiered on. And I am joined by the hosts of NWSL podcast @_itsnotsoccer to discuss the USWNT/US Soccer lawsuit, equal rights, equal pay and the state of women’s football in general.

Be safe, wash your hands. 

Women begin holding rogue World Cups in 1970. By the mid-80s, they are storming the gates of FIFA demanding that the women’s game be recognized. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation is on the verge of creating a Women’s FIFA. Something had to be done.

In 1971, FIFA lifts the ban on women playing football. But they don’t do anything to help the women’s game. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation is having none of that.

By 1970, women are playing football all over the world, but FIFA is not sanctioning matches. FIFA doesn’t seem to care. Someone else is paying attention though, and they set out to make history.

One hundred years ago, Australian women start playing football. Over the last century, they slowly and quietly, with little help from anyone, became one of the best sides in the world.

Germany was a dangerous place in the 1930s. The German economy was suffering under the Great Depression and German politics was becoming toxic. The Nazis are about to come to power. Men fought in the streets over politics. In the middle of all that, women took to the pitch to play football.

And Austrian women attempt to do the impossible, something that still hasn’t been done in women’s soccer anywhere else.

“If you don’t have any collective memory, you cannot fight because you don’t have any history before you that could help you.” Marco Giani

Marco Giani joins us from Milan to tell us more about GFC Milan, the Female Italian Partizans and much more.

In 1932, a group of high school girls play a soccer match in Italy. But this is Mussolini’s Italy. These young women are challenging not just sexism, but fascism. In so doing, they set off a series of remarkable events which will forever change Italy and women’s football around the world.

Women’s football in France begins in 1917, and the French teams are a bit more organized than the English teams. What makes a club more than a team? Alice Milliat, pioneer of women’s sport and women’s soccer and the Women’s Olympic Games. And, a familiar end…

Today, we look at the long history of the Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC and  their impact on women’s sports.

And I’m joined by Mike MacDonald of EPL Pod fame to discuss the eternal question:

Who is the greatest of all time, Messi, Ronaldo, or Lily Parr?

Dick, Kerr’s Ladies FC was the most famous and successful women’s team in history. Founded in 1917, they continued to play after the Ban. For nearly another 50 years.

I’m joined today by Gail Newsham, author of In a League of their Own: Dick, Kerr Ladies 1917-1965 and Ruth Harker, of the US Women’s National Team.

Why did the English Football Association ban women from playing? Coal. 

Some British women get the right to vote in 1918, but by 1921 female football players are stepping in to the political arena in a big way.

And after the ban, these defiant young women continue to play and spread the game abroad. Within days of the Ban, they form the English Ladies Football Association and create the first proper women’s league in England.

In WWI, men in Britain went to war and women went to work. And just as working men had taken to football, working women now took to the beautiful game. Thousands of women’s teams were formed in England. And eventually, a championship tournament was created, the Munitionettes’ Cup.

Women’s football became the national past-time. The women are super stars!

But then, sexism steps in and ruins the party. Until Rugby saves the day?

In this first episode of the Forgotten XI, we'll go all the way back to the beginning of Women's Football, 1863 and the first Association Soccer.

And we'll take a look at the very first professional women's teams, all the way back in 1881. These teams were controversial in their day, more because people were close minded than because the women did anything controversial. 

There are riots, pitch invasions, world tours and politics! 

Women have been playing association football, or soccer, for 150 years, just as long as the men. But people just keep forgetting or worse, bury their stories for decades. 

Let's change that. Let's bring their stories back. This is just a taste of what we'll cover, because I need your help. 

Have a listen, and join me, Chris McGlynn, on Slack.