Women's football (soccer)
|
|
UEFA-Women's_Cup_Final_2005_at_Potsdam_1.jpg
Association Football (soccer) is the most prominent team sport for women in many countries, and one of the few women's team sports with professional leagues (the other global one being basketball).
| Contents |
Early Women's football
Women's football has been played for a long time with reports of the game being played in the 1790s [1] (http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_football.cfm?curpageid=409) [2] (http://emagazine.credit-suisse.com/article/index2.cfm?fuseaction=OpenArticlePrint&aoid=37289&lang=en). The first match recorded by the Scottish Football Association took place in 1892 in Glasgow. In England the first recorded game of football between women took place in England in 1895 [3] (http://www.thefa.com/Womens/EnglandSenior/History/). However the women's game was frowned upon by the British Football Associations, and continued without their support. It has been speculated that this may have been due to the threat to the 'masculinity' of the game.
Women's football first became popular on a large scale at the time of the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. The most successful team of the era was Dick, Kerr's Ladies of Preston, England. The team played in the first women's international matches in 1920, against a team from Paris, France, in April, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in 1920, and winning 22-0 [4] (http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_football.cfm?curpageid=409).
Despite being more popular than some men's football events (one match saw a 53,000 strong crowd), women's football in England suffered a blow in 1921 when The Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on Association members' pitches, on the grounds that the game (as played by women) was distasteful. Some speculated that this may have also been to envy of the large crowds that women's matches attracted [5] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/4603149.stm).
This led to the formation of the English Ladies Football Association, and play moved to rugby grounds. The lack of exposure of Women's football also slowed its growth, but its popularity still grew after the ban.
The 'revival' of the Women's game
The English Women's FA was formed in 1969 (as a result of the increased interest generated by the 1966 World Cup), and the FA's ban was finally lifted in 1971. However women's football in UK has not recovered to the popularity it once had.
In the 1970s, Italy became the first country with professional women's football players, albeit on a part-time basis. The first full-time professional team was the United States national squad, and in 1992, Japan was the first country to have a professional women's football league.
International competitions
In 1937, Dick, Kerr's played Edinburgh Ladies in "The Championship of Great Britain and the World", but there was no formal international tournament until 1982 when the first UEFA European Competition For Representative Women's Teams was launched. The finals, in 1984, were won by Sweden.
The competition was succeeded by the UEFA Women's Championship. In 1987, the final of the first competition was again won by Sweden. Since then, the Women's Championship has been dominated by Germany, which has won five of the six subsequent competitions.
The first Women's World Cup was held in China in 1991, and was won by the USA. The third Cup, held in the United States in 1999, drew worldwide television interest and a final in front of a 90,000-strong Los Angeles crowd, where the home team won 5-4 on penalty kicks. The image of American player Brandi Chastain celebrating the winning goal by stripping off her shirt (to reveal a modest sports bra) and waving it around, and finally sinking to her knees is not only one of the most recognized images in this sport, but perhaps the most famous image of any women's sport.
Besides the United States and Germany (which won the 2003 World Cup), the strongest women's teams have traditionally been Norway, China, and Sweden, with nations like Brazil and Canada emerging as powers.
In 2002, FIFA inaugurated a women's youth championship, officially called the FIFA U-19 Women's World Championship. The first event was hosted by Canada. The final was an all-CONCACAF affair, with the USA defeating the host Canadians 1-0 with an extra-time golden goal. The second event was held in Thailand in 2004 and won by Germany.
See also
- List of women's football teams
- List of women's national football teams
- List of women's football (soccer) competitions
- Machismo
- Women's sports
- Women's United Soccer Association
External links
- Fair Game Magazine site - leading source of information on British women's football (http://www.fairgamemagazine.com)
- Women's United Soccer Association (http://www.wusa.com/)
- Women's Premier Soccer League (http://www.wpsl.info).
- Women's FIFA (http://www.fifa.com/en/womens/index.html)
- Upfront - a voice for female football fans (http://www.upfront-online.co.uk/overview.htm)
- FemaleFan (http://www.femalefan.com/)
- Yahoo! Directory: Women's Football (http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Sports/Soccer/Women/)
- Football Culture article on women's football in the UK (http://www.footballculture.britishcouncil.or.th/players/feat_women.html)
- University of Leicester fact sheet on women's football (http://www.le.ac.uk/footballresearch/resources/factsheets/fs5.html)
- BBC Sport articles:
- "Trail-blazers who pioneered women's football" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/4603149.stm)
- "How women's football battled for survival" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/4607171.stm)
- "History of Women's Football"
- The Football Association (http://www.thefa.com/Womens/EnglandSenior/History/)
- Scottish Football Association (http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_football.cfm?curpageid=409)
Template:Women's footballbg:Женски футбол es:ftbol femenino fr:Football fminin de:Frauenfuball ja:女子サッカー