National Football Museum to bring tales of fans on away trips and the first unofficial women’s World Cup back to life

A groundbreaking women’s football history conference aims to blow apart perceptions of the sport as it kicks off at the National Football Museum in Manchester on Thursday.

The two-day conference, which begins on International Women’s Day, hosts academics, journalists and artists from around the globe. Lectures range from the acclaimed writer and sports activist Shireen Ahmed discussing football and the hijab, to a study on women and the 1966 men’s World Cup from Professor John Hughson.

Holding a strong presence is a series of talks on the rich and fascinating history of women’s football in Central and South America. That history lies in stark contrast to the clear lack of support for many of the national women’s teams in the region today – with Brazil’s star players openly criticising their national federation, the Colombia kit launch using Miss Colombia instead of their female players to model shirts alongside James Rodríguez, and Peru going eight years without an international fixture before last year playing Chile, who had not played in 981 days.

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These older histories also lie outside of the official narrative espoused by Fifa, which hosted its first World Cup in 1991 but curates a glossy identity marginalising pioneers who preceded it; such as the world championship of 1971, held in Mexico City with national TV coverage and a sell-out paying crowd at the Estadio Azteca.

Joshua Nadel, an associate professor at North Carolina Central University, is writing a book with Brenda Elsey, associate professor at Hofstra and co-host of the feminist sports podcast Burn It All Down, on these stories. Nadel cites sources to prove 110,000 people attended the 1971 final, Mexico v Denmark – which smashes the oft-cited record crowd for a women’s sports fixture of 90,185 at the 1999 Fifa World Cup final at the Rose Bowl.

“It takes a lot for us to have lost these histories,” says Professor Jennifer Doyle, who is giving the keynote lecture to open the conference. “It’s an active commitment to [reject] the idea that women’s sports are boring and no one wants to watch. It’s just pure misogyny. It’s a brutal way to put it, but to not be able to see that women’s sports are fun and thrilling, well something needs to be changed in how you look at the world.”

Doyle, while researching for her book on art and sport, travelled to Goa and came across the incredible story of Yolanda De Souza, an iconic player for India who travelled the world representing her side in the 1970s and 80s. Doyle remarks that so much of the uncovering of women’s stories is accidental, that women’s presence is so marginalised in sport, and this is a theme that manifests itself in the artwork of the sport too.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Elaine Shaw and friends on their trip to Rotterdam to see Everton play the 1985 Cup Winners’ Cup final. Photograph: ElaineShaw

“Work that takes the women’s game as the focus is different to that which takes the men’s game as the focus. In the men’s game you see the global interest, but when artists take up women’s football their work tends to feel much more personal – it’s staged outside the camera’s eye, that sense of there being no audience. You don’t see the athlete playing in front of a crowd, you see portraits of women standing individually, removed from the spectacle of the game.”

Photographer, academic and football fan Jacqui McAssey’s visual project Girlfans seeks to retell the narrative about women at the game. In 2013 she began photographing female fans in her home town, Liverpool, interested in reflecting the statistic that 23% of fans attending Premier League matches are women. “As a girl growing up in Liverpool I would always hear brilliant stories of men going to cup finals, but I never heard stories of women. So I wanted to place women at the centre of football culture.” Her project has grown in stature with the V&A art library, GQ Style and the Whitworth gallery in Manchester showcasing her work.

Quick guide A brief history of women's football Show Hide 1881 First recorded women’s match in England. 1895 North vs South match, Crouch End, 10,000 spectators. 1920 Dick, Kerr Ladies play in front of record crowd of 53,000. 1921 FA bans women’s football as a game “unsuitable for ladies”. 1970 Coppa del Mondo, Italy, unofficial World Cup (Denmark triumphed over Italy in the final, England finished 4th after losing the 3rd place play off to Mexico). 1971 FA lifts ban. 1991 First official Fifa women’s World Cup – but no sponsor, no prize money, the matches only lasted 80min, and the USA’s victory was not even broadcast in USA. 1993 FA brings women’s game under its umbrella. 1998 Hope Powell appointed as England coach, first ever full-time role for the position. 1999 USA host and win the World Cup, Brandi Chastain’s iconic winning celebration sends the sport stratospheric. A record 90,185 watch the final at the Rose Bowl. 2005 FA hosts women’s Euros 2007 Fifa finally introduces prize money to women’s World Cup. England are knocked out by USA in the quarter-finals. Marta is the star of the tournament, and golden boot winner. 2011 FA Women’s Super League is launched - an eight team, summer competition format. England are knocked out of World Cup in the quarter finals, losing on penalties to France. 2013 England fail to make it out of the group stage at the Euros. Hope Powell departs. Mark Sampson appointed. 2015 World Cup in Canada expands to 24 teams, but lawsuit over artificial turf threatens to overshadow proceedings. England thrill reaching third place. The total prize money is the highest ever at $15m, still a drop in the ocean compared to the men’s 2014 World Cup at $576m. 2017 FAWSL switches to winter competition.

One of her favourite stories is of Everton fan Elaine Shaw who, together with her 65-year-old mother, travelled to the 1985 European Cup Winners’ Cup final at Feyenoord. “They got on the ferry, they slept on a bench, and on the grass outside, they did the same thing as the men – which is so often the case for female fans. But I never heard those stories.”

McAssey’s work also disrupts the idea that men pass down an interest in football to women in their families. “The photograph of grandmother and granddaughter Chris and Georgia Blue Kenyon, at the Etihad, is representative of a significant shift in the dynamic, that of women introducing girls (and boys) to the sport.”

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That matrilineal heritage would have happened with ease in a country such as Costa Rica where, despite early attempts to ban the game, as was done elsewhere around the world, women’s teams appeared as early as 1926, while by the 1940s they were touring the region and attracting thousands of spectators, as well as media coverage. “There were congressional hearings in Costa Rica about banning it,” says Nadel. “There were testimonies from doctors giving reasons – chauvinistic norms masquerading as an interest in women’s public health. But it didn’t happen. There was a strong women’s team who travelled around Central America in the 1960s; they were stopped at the Colombian border as an “affront to Colombian morals” because of the shorts they wore.

“There were hundreds of teams in Mexico in the 1970s. The city of Monterrey had over 200 teams. Torreón, this little town with just 200,000 people at the time, had over 60 teams according to someone who played at the time. So women’s football was everywhere.”

Professor Jean Williams, who curated the conference, hopes future sponsorship may help to bring more diverse histories from African and Asian nations, as well as stories about disability football. In telling the world about the rich history of the women’s game, many hope the sport will also be better supported in the future.