Women and football - part two
LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN’S ‘INTERNATIONAL’ FOOTBALL
Background
It’s well known that the Football Association was formally established in October 1863. But very little attention has been given to what happened less than twenty years later. Following a 6-1 victory by the Scottish men’s team against England at the Kensington Oval (London) in March 1881, an international match attended by an estimated crowd of 4,000–5,000 spectators, someone described as ‘an enterprising advertising agent’ looked to cash in by staging an equivalent women’s fixture. Accordingly, two teams were assembled for the ‘purpose of popularising football as a feminine pastime’ and, it was stressed, financial gain. Those representing England were said to originate mainly from London while their Scottish counterparts apparently came mostly from Glasgow. Even so, it was hinted that their nationalities may not have been given in good faith. All of them were estimated to be aged between 18 and 24, the majority described as ‘well-built, athletic-looking girls’. Their physique was explained in some accounts as a consequence of many being ballet dancers and the like. The Liverpool Echo even referred to them as ‘a female football troupe’.[1] In addition, there was speculation as to their true identity, with several newspapers commenting upon the ‘simple’, ‘splendid’ or ‘romantic’ nature of the players’ names.[2] Nevertheless, preparation was minimal – reportedly no more than a fortnight. Although it was rumoured that a couple of well-known male players belonging to a leading Glasgow club had been approached to coach the women, ‘nobody would have anything to do with the matter’. So instead both teams trained indoors, practising their dribbling in ‘a certain drill hall’ close to Glasgow Cross.[3] Although several reports suggested that the English team had never played outdoors, together with their Scottish opponents they had ‘a full dress rehearsal’ in a field in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park (Glasgow) the day prior to their debut.
While both sides had familiarised themselves with the laws of the game, the same would not be said of the two umpires: Mr G.F. Charles of London (for the English team) and Mr. Alec Gordon of Edinburgh (for the Scottish team). Given their ignorance of Football Association rules, they may well have been part of the show. This has prompted speculation as to their identities and the nature of their involvement. According to several newspaper reports there was a G.F. Charles, who for many years was the lessee and manager of the Theatre Royal, St Helens. This G.F. Charles, however, was actually an alias of George Imbert (c.1822–1891). Imbert alias Charles was an acquaintance of Charles Scholes (c.1831–1883), alias Charles Henry Duval of Blackburn. Scholes alias Duval was likewise the lessee and manager of several theatres in Lancashire. He had been declared bankrupt in 1870 and in June 1880 a petition was filed for the liquidation of his affairs. Scholes’s liabilities were estimated at £2,500 and the stage effects and scenery at St Helens were auctioned to pay his creditors. Whether following the collapse of Scholes’s business Imbert / Charles together with Gordon hit upon the idea women’s football as a money-making scheme is difficult to say. Assuming that the umpire G.F. Charles was not a namesake but one and the same with the theatre manager, then he would have been nearly 60 at the time. Moreover, Imbert / Charles can be placed at St Helens between January 1878 and January 1881, and then again from October 1881 – but not, to my knowledge, in the spring and summer of 1881 when the women’s football matches took place in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lancashire and Yorkshire. In short, the involvement of Imbert / Charles and his associates in this business is an intriguing if as yet unproven suggestion.
7 May. Hibernian Park, Edinburgh: Scotland 3–0 England
Several Glasgow clubs were approached as a potential venue. None granted it, however, with the possible exception of Rangers F.C., whose ground at Kinning Park was to have hosted the fixture. That is, until a drawn charity game was replayed there instead.[4] As a consequence, Edinburgh not Glasgow became the stage for the first women’s ‘international’ football match. The 90-minute contest was played according to Football Association rules at Hibernian Park, Easter Road on Saturday, 7 May 1881. Attendance for this ‘athletic novelty’ was estimated at about 2,000 people, although with ‘hardly any ladies present’.[5] As a gimmick, the players arrived shortly after 3.00pm in an omnibus drawn by four horses. They were colourfully dressed in kit ‘essentially similar to that worn by male football players’. Both teams of eleven ladies were provided with woollen cowls (not unlike hooded tops); blue and white for the Scots, crimson and white for the English. The Scottish players wore blue jerseys with a crimson waist sash and a lion rampant badge on the breast. Their English opponents wore crimson jerseys with a blue waist sash and a badge featuring two Union Jacks.[6] In addition, both teams wore knickerbockers; hose (blue and white for the Scots; crimson and white for the English); and high-heeled boots.[7] Kick-off was about 3.30pm with the match split into two 45-minute halves. Both sides lined up with a goalkeeper, two backs, two half-backs and six forwards.[8] The ball was made of leather.
Playing against the wind in the first half and with the advantage of it in the second, the supposed Scotswomen won 3-0 (goalscorers: Miss Lilly St Clair; Miss Louise Cole; Miss Maud Riverford). Bella Oswald (Scotland) and Maud Hopewell (England) were said to have played well along with some of the forwards, while Isa Stevenson set up the last goal. Yet this ‘mild kind of football’ was not an entirely gentle affair. Although there was ‘an appearance of bashfulness and hesitancy’ at the outset, the two teams soon began playing ‘with all the enthusiasm of boys’. Besides running and dribbling, there were also some rough passages of play, ‘frequent scrimmages’ and ‘a tumble or two’. Even so, sections of the crowd made ‘sarcastic or personal remarks’, loudly guffawing at the standard of play which, except for some frantic goalmouth action, was noticeably slow. These rowdy elements also criticised the appearance of the players – some of whom had ‘retained such feminine ornaments as frillings, bracelets, &c.’, although others had their arms bare to the shoulders. There was also amusement when these ‘Amazonian maids’, to quote the Carlisle Express, began shrieking whenever there was danger of conceding a goal. Before the end, more than half the spectators had gone – reportedly either with their curiosity satisfied or else in disgust.
Press coverage was largely hostile. Bell’s Life judged the standard of football to be ‘of the most primitive order’. The Dundee Courier called it ‘a most disappointing spectacle’. The Glasgow Herald considered it ‘a failure’. The Scotsman declared it ‘a most unfeminine exhibition’, while the Weston Mercury declared it a ‘senseless, shameless parody on manly sport’. So too the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald, which pronounced it ‘infinitely worse’ than a recent burlesque on the national summer sport by a team of ‘clown cricketers’. Moreover, the Glasgow Evening News thought it neither sporting to witness women getting ‘violently knocked about a field’ nor particularly healthy – ‘either physically or morally’. The Aberdeen Evening Express was equally condemnatory, lamenting that young ladies should make ‘a spectacle for the vulgar’ by publicly displaying themselves ‘in a semi-nude condition’. Similarly, the Glasgow News worried about the impact of this ‘outrageous exhibition’ on public morals. The Jedburgh Gazette was equally unequivocal: this was ‘women’s rights with a vengeance’ and such ‘pretensions to public notoriety’ had no place in Scotland. The Aberdeen Journal on the other hand, praised the young women’s ‘excellent physique’ and thought their ‘somewhat fantastic costumes’ made the scene ‘very charming and effective’.
Aberdeen Press and Journal (14 May 1881)
16 May. Shawfield Recreation Grounds, Glasgow: Scotland 0–0 England (match abandoned)
After the Edinburgh show another performance was planned at Dumbarton on Thursday, 12 May. But there is no indication that this took place. So on the evening of Monday, 16 May a second fixture was played at Shawfield Recreation Grounds, on the banks of the River Clyde near Rutherglen Bridge in Glasgow. Mainly used as a running and horse trotting venue, it had been secured as a last resort by the match promoter because the members of all the city’s major football clubs had refused to allow their pitches to be used for such an ‘unseemly exhibition’. Ahead of the game several newspapers carried advertisements for this ‘Grand International Football Match’ featuring ‘Lady Players’.
Glasgow Evening Citizen (14 May 1881)
As a consequence of this publicity by 7pm Rutherglen Bridge was lined with a large crowd, mostly people from Bridgeton and Saltmarket. Reportedly, more than 3,000 mostly ‘rowdy’ male spectators attended. Indeed, few were of the ‘class’ that normally patronised the game. Hundreds more got in without paying.[9] Admission was one shilling; double the normal price for watching a men’s match. Once again the teams were paraded onto the field in an omnibus. The line-ups were unchanged and presumably the players were kitted out the same as before.[10]
Play began about 7.30pm and was soon accompanied by sounds of laughter, joking, cheering, occasional hooting and swearing as well as shouts of ‘Go it, Fanny’ and ‘Well done, Nelly’. Indeed, the match was described as ‘a very tame affair’. It was also abandoned, scoreless, after fifty-five minutes following a pitch invasion – the ropes keeping back the crowd were cut, whereupon the ‘rougher elements’ rushed onto the field. The players were ‘roughly jostled’ and ‘rather badly treated by the mob’. One, or perhaps as many as four, reportedly fainted. They were saved from potentially serious injury after police baton-charged the ‘infuriated ruffians’ and rescued them. Thereupon the players retreated to the omnibus which was then driven rapidly from the ground by a team of four grey horses while the crowd jeered and hurled wooden stakes at them.[11] Outside the ground local girls from the Bridgeton mills joined in the chorus of derision. As the omnibus crossed over Rutherglen Bridge some hooligans attempted to drag the players from their vehicle. But they were prevented by a number of onlookers (there were too few policemen present, who were ‘powerless to quell the disturbance’).
Unsurprisingly, this ‘disgraceful scene’ prompted a great deal of further press hostility. Bell’s Life bemoaned the players’ ‘utmost ignorance of the game’, not to mention the ‘umpiring’, which was ‘even more ignorant of the simple rudiments of the Association rules’. Hence there was encroachment at throw-ins. Nor were there any corner kicks, despite the defending side repeatedly sending the ball behind the goal line. There was also criticism of the players’ lack of ball control and tactical awareness. The Glasgow Herald deemed the standard of play ‘most amateurish’, while the Greenock Telegraph called it ‘a pure farce from beginning to end’. The Wharfedale and Airedale Observer went further, opining that these ‘enterprising “merry maidens”’ must have learned from their unfortunate experience in Glasgow that there was insufficient appetite among the British public for ‘female football matches’ and that, as yet, these exhibitions were not suitable for making money. Similarly, the Paisley Daily Express declared that the football field was ‘not the place for the fair sex except as spectators’. Indeed it was:
against our chivalric notions that such creatures should expose their dainty limbs to the gaze of the vulgar crowd, and be seen kicking and sprawling about like so many windmills gone mad.
For its part, the Sheffield Independent wished that the female players – if they had the ‘slightest trait of womanly modesty’ – would not perform again in public. In the same vein, the John o’Groat Journal declared that respectable people would not go near women disgracefully dressed in ‘ordinary male football costume’. Likewise, the Ulster Examiner denounced it as a ‘sad’, ‘humiliating’, ‘shocking and disgusting sight’ that should not be repeated. Accordingly, it expressed the hope that ‘the evil example which the immoral Scotch have just exhibited will find no imitators’. Turning to the Dundee Courier, it maintained that ‘the doctrine of women’s rights is not to be recognised as including the right to appear in public places in knickerbocker suits for the purpose of playing football’. Furthermore, a football match played by women was not merely an oddity but an objectionable and potentially indecent spectacle. As such ‘it ought to be suppressed’ by the police. This sentiment, however, was not universal for another Dundee correspondent defended the right of women to play whatever lawful game they wished – including football. For good measure, this person rebuked the spectators for their ‘unmanliness and want of self-respect’ which was ‘altogether unworthy of the name of Scotchmen’.
Dundee Courier (18 May 1881)
17 May. Hamilton Park, Kilmarnock: match cancelled
The next day the female footballers intended to go and play at Hamilton Park, the ground of Kilmarnock Portland F.C. (1873–1883). A crowd gathered outside, ‘expecting to see the Amazons’. But they did not appear. This was because on the recommendation of the magistrates the club withdrew their permission, so as to avoid ‘scandal’. Almost at the last minute ‘bills were circulated stating that the match had been postponed’. The teams’ managers were also telegraphed with a message that seemed to spell the end for women’s ‘international’ football north of the border.
Once again press coverage was overwhelmingly condemnatory. Reportedly the proposed match at Kilmarnock had been looked upon with ‘considerable disfavour by the public’ and no football club ‘with any regard for their good name’ wanted to be associated with such a ‘humiliating spectacle’. Furthermore, the Irvine Times was thankful that ‘an insult to womanly modesty’ and ‘a disgrace to the national pastime’ had been avoided. Similarly, the Birmingham Mail advised the ‘muscular young ladies’ to give up their ‘project’ since they had little hope of ‘enlisting public sympathy’ south of the River Tweed. But like the Sheffield Independent, which thought it probable that ‘nothing more would be heard of the gyrations of the Amazonian football players’, it was wrong. For the show continued in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald (21 May 1881)
21 May. Hole-i’-th’wall, Blackburn: England 1–0 Scotland
On Saturday afternoon, 21 May some 4,000 spectators turned out in fine weather at the ‘Hole-i’-th’wall’ ground of Blackburn Olympic Football Club to watch another women’s fixture of ‘England’ v ‘Scotland’.[12] This time it was reported that all the players came from Glasgow, which was fortunate since it meant they could not understand the broad Lancashire accents of the spectators who teased them mercilessly. After two goals had been disallowed and with just a few minutes remaining, there was ‘an exciting scrimmage in front of the Scotch posts’ from which the English scored the winning goal. According to The Manchester Guardian, however, there was little effective teamwork with each player ‘striving to kick the ball’ as the opportunity arose. The Blackburn Standard said much the same: ‘there were no half-backs or any halves whatever about the game, each lady being in full possession of her position, and playing her own game whenever she got the chance, without much regard to the result’.
Blackburn Standard (28 May 1881)
As before, in addition to commenting upon the game several newspapers raised issues of public decency and women’s rights. The Newry Reporter decried the ‘masculinisation’ of women and thought it ‘quite revolting’ that the ‘well-built’ ladies wore tight-fitting clothes, while the Saturday Review sarcastically suggested that the recently founded ‘Rational Dress Society’ could borrow hints from the players’ costume. Regarding women’s rights, the Rhyl Record opined that there ‘can be no doubt as to the desirability of the physical as well as the moral and intellectual development of the female portion of the community’. But it questioned the wisdom of publicly playing women’s football as a way of achieving this.
28 May. Fairfield Athletic Grounds, Liverpool: match cancelled
30 May. Queen’s Grounds, Sheffield: England 2–1 Scotland
Staying in Lancashire, the lady footballers travelled from Blackburn to Liverpool. Here another match was advertised the following Saturday, 28 May at Fairfield Athletic Grounds. Kick-off was scheduled for 3.30pm. But after nearly two hours waiting the expectant crowd gradually dispersed because neither team showed up. No explanation was provided for the abrupt cancellation. Instead, the players went to Manchester where they searched fruitlessly for a pitch. Afterwards they travelled to Sheffield to play at the Queen’s Grounds, Hillsborough – usually a running venue – on Monday, 30 May with a 6.00pm kick-off. Nearly 1,000 spectators watched this ‘football farce’, which the ‘English’ won 2-1.
Sheffield Independent (31 May 1881)
3 June. Stanley Athletic Grounds, Liverpool: England 1–1 Scotland
Thereafter the lady footballers returned to Liverpool, where they secured the Stanley Athletic Grounds on the outskirts of the city for an evening fixture. This game was played on Friday, 3 June with a 7.30pm kick-off. Athletic News provided a detailed report. The match was ‘well contested’ with some of the players showing ‘remarkably good form’. In particular, the English goalkeeper was praised for her shot-stopping, while several of the forwards were also commended for their dribbling and making ‘splendid runs’. It ended 1-1 (goalscorers: Miss Eva Davenport for England, Miss Louise Cole for Scotland). Altogether it was judged ‘a great success’, although the attendance was smaller than expected.
Athletic News (8 June 1881)
6 June. Halifax: score unknown
From Liverpool the lady footballers went back to Manchester. There during the Whitsuntide holiday period, that is between 5–7 June, they arranged to play three more ‘international’ fixtures at Salford F.C.’s ground. But unfortunately ‘their guide and cashier bolted with all the money that was left in the treasury’. Lacking any spare cash to pay the farmer in Salford to whom the ground belonged and who demanded advance payment of rent, the lady footballers were forced to abandon these matches. So on Monday, 6 June they journeyed just over 30 miles to Halifax, where they played on the Free Wanderers’ ground (a local rugby team). This ‘rather novel spectacle’ attracted a large crowd, although the proceedings were ‘of a somewhat tame character’. As in previous matches, the players were sometimes subjected to ridicule. But the score in this game is unknown.
13 June. Windhill, Bradford: England 2–3 Scotland
A few days later they were reportedly in Leeds, although it is unclear if this was to play or publicise a fixture. Then on 13 June this ‘not altogether prepossessing band of females’ travelled by train from Manchester to Bradford for a Monday evening kick-off at Windhill. There a large crowd turned out to see the ‘Amazonian leather hunters’. The game itself was ‘well played’ and lasted more than an hour, with nothing that could cause any great objection. Indeed, the spectators were not rude but boisterous, occasionally laughing but more often ‘uproariously’ cheering as Scotland beat England 3-2.
Bradford Daily Telegraph (14 June 1881)
20 June. Cheetham F.C., Manchester: England 0–0 Scotland (match abandoned)
21 June. Cheetham F.C., Manchester: England 0–0 Scotland (match abandoned)
The following Monday evening, 20 June the female footballers put in another appearance, this time at Cheetham Football Club, Tetlow Fold in Manchester. This match, together with a further two fixtures on consecutive days, had been advertised on placards around the city. As a result there was a large crowd, with many managing to evade paying an admission fee of one or two shillings. Kick-off had been scheduled for 7.30pm but the teams arrived about half an hour late. After about 30 minutes of ‘indifferent play’ there was a pitch invasion and the fixture abandoned. The next day a second game took place at the same venue. As before, very few among another large crowd paid for admission. Many of these spectators gathered either or on the road or else on high ground on the other side of the field so as to view proceedings. This time, however, there was a large police presence to maintain order. They succeeded for about an hour before those occupying the ‘higher land’ rushed onto the pitch. At which point the players, mindful of the rough treatment they had experienced elsewhere in the country, hastily retreated to a waggonette that had transported them to the ground. Condemning the ‘disorderly scene’, The Manchester Guardian blamed the young women footballers for gratifying the ‘vulgar curiosity’ of uncouth youths by kicking a ball about the field in unbecoming attire. For good measure Cheetham F.C. publicly distanced itself from the spectacle, with a letter from the club secretary published in the Manchester Courier.
Manchester Guardian (22 June 1881)
25 June. Stanley Athletic Grounds, Liverpool: England 1–2 Scotland
27 June. Stanley Athletic Grounds, Liverpool: England 0–2 Scotland
Undeterred, the women footballers went from Manchester to Liverpool to play two scheduled matches at the Cattle Market Inn Athletic Grounds in Stanley on Saturday, 25 June and Monday, 27 June. Tickets were priced at one shilling. Failure to fulfil their fixture on 28 May combined with the costly admission fee likely put off many from coming. So only a small crowd watched ‘Scotland’ dominate their opponents, winning the first encounter by two goals to one. Curiously the Manchester Evening News added that the Scottish team ‘succeeded in making several touchdowns’. A larger number of cheering spectators attended the next fixture, a ‘very spirited’ contest in which the Scots triumphed over the plucky ‘English’ 2-0. A third match at the same Liverpool venue was announced for Tuesday, 28 June with a 7.30pm kick-off. Yet there is no indication that it was played. This may have been because the women footballers were reportedly the victims of theft: according to the Leeds Mercury a gatekeeper tasked with collecting admission fees had made off with ‘all their hard cash’. The same newspaper concluded with the hope that this ‘calamity’ would have the effect of ‘sending these females, who have been so eager to unsex themselves’ back to their homes.
Liverpool Mercury (28 June 1881)
What happened to these lady footballers afterwards is unclear. Certainly there are no more match reports. Rather it was said that two or three English grounds had rescinded their permission for these ‘damsels to exhibit their unfeminine powers’. Moreover, negotiations to hire London grounds had proved ‘wholly unsuccessful’. At the end of July the Aberdeen Evening Express recoiled from the prospect a cricket match between schoolgirls in Birmingham by recalling:
with what bitter contempt the public and press treated not long ago the promoters of the female football tournaments at Edinburgh and elsewhere, and how the feelings even of those who were most likely to tolerate the vile exhibition revolted against the unusual and unseemly exhibition.
Prejudice had won. Women’s football did not become ‘a national institution’ – at least in the short term.
Commentary
Clearly, as a number of contemporary newspapers intimated, money was the main reason for playing women’s football in 1881. This was frowned upon since during this period gentleman amateurs embodying the ‘Corinthian Spirit’ were resisting the increasing professionalization of sport – including football. As for the female players, they were likely recruited because of their suitable physiques and many may also have been professional performers on stage. Moreover, besides the managers (who may have doubled up as umpires) there was also a match promoter. Indeed, games were publicised through an assortment of techniques including small advertisements in newspapers and placards. There was even a photograph of the ‘female football players’ team’ available from a Glasgow company with premises on Sauchiehall Street.[13] High ticket prices and reported thefts of the match takings on two occasions reinforce the financial motivation of all involved. Yet as contemporary newspapers also remarked, albeit disapprovingly on the whole, the lady footballers were seen as advancing the cause of women’s rights. Here advocates for equality had to contend with prevailing views as to what constituted femininity and masculinity. Tied up with this were deep-seated notions regarding appropriate physical exercise for girls and women, which varied according to social class. Anticipating a notice in The British Medical Journal (1894) regarding the possibility of sustaining injuries to the breasts that would prevent the nurturing of infants, there was even concern for the players’ physical well-being. As far away as Boston, Massachusetts a correspondent wrote that football, with its ‘violent scrimmages’, was ‘too rough a game for girls to indulge in’. A further dimension was religion. Muscular Christianity – exemplified by patriotism, self-sacrifice and athleticism – was all very well for men. But was it suitable for women too?
Turning to where matches were played or scheduled, these were well-chosen locations. Indeed, Scotland (Edinburgh, Dumbarton, Glasgow, Kilmarnock), Lancashire (Blackburn, Liverpool, Manchester) and Yorkshire (Sheffield, Halifax, Bradford) were then the heartland of football. So much so that when the English Football League was founded seven years later in April 1888, six of the twelve clubs were from Lancashire, with the other six from the Midlands. As for the social composition of the crowds who attended, those who got in without paying seem to have been of a lower social status than the usual spectator at a men’s match. This was a point made by a number of contemporary journalists who, together with the bulk of their readers, doubtless looked down upon people they considered their social inferiors. Yet it must be emphasised that the rowdy scenes at several of the women’s matches (three were abandoned because of pitch invasions) were not unique for the period. For as one historian has commented, ‘riots, unruly behaviour, violence, assault and vandalism appear to have been a well-established but not necessarily dominant pattern of crowd behaviour at football matches at least from the 1870s’.
Epilogue
Charles Scholes, alias Charles Henry Duval, theatrical manager, died at Blackburn on 5 February 1883 owing money to various creditors. George Imbert, alias G.F. Charles, theatrical lessee and manager, followed him to the grave at Blackburn on 8 May 1891. As for Lilly St Clair, scorer of the first ‘international’ goal in a women’s football match, someone using that name performed as a singer at the ‘Palace of Varieties’ in Bethnal Green, London in October 1882. Miss Lilly St Clair, ‘Burlesque Vocalist’, also performed at the ‘Amphitheatre’, Portsmouth in February 1885. Yet Lilly St Clair was also one of a number of aliases used by Lilly Cohen (others included Tottie Fay, Lillian Rothschild and Violet St John). Aged 30 in 1887, this woman was frequently in trouble with the London police for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, using obscene language and perjury. At one of her many court appearances in May 1892 (by then she had been charged more than thirty times at one court alone), Lilly appeared in a ‘peculiar’ costume. ‘On her breast were four large silver-plated balls’, about the ‘size of small oranges’. They were said to be ‘“badges of honour”’. Did they represent footballs?
[1] Stuart Gibbs has argued that the players were ‘surplus to requirement’ of a theatrical company that performed Les Cloches de Corneville at Glasgow in April 1881. One part of this company was trained by Mr Charles Bernard, the other by Lizzie Gilbert who had previously toured with her ‘Juvenile Ballet Troupe’. But these ‘little performers’ were children, whereas the majority of newspapers described the footballers as young women in their late teens or early twenties. It should be added that a later report claimed that they were waitresses working at the Grand Café Parisien on Buchanan Street, Glasgow. This, however, was emphatically denied by the manager, resulting in an apology from the newspaper that had printed the story.
[2] Genealogical research has suggested that at least two of the players were actors.
[3] It is possible that the drill hall was ‘adjacent to the Tron Church near Glasgow Cross’.
[4] This replay was watched by an estimated crowd of 10,000. Queen’s Park defeated the home team Rangers 3-1.
[5] It is not known how many paid for admission, but ticket prices were likely 1s.
[6] It was reported that the English players wore the lion rampant badge. But since the royal banner of Scotland is a red lion rampant I have assumed this was a mistake.
[7] Some accounts have ‘high-laced boots’. But high-heeled boots are in keeping with contemporary representations.
[8] Scotland: Ethel Hay (goal), Bella Oswald, Georgina Wright (backs), Rose Rayman [Raynham], Isa Stevenson (half-backs), Emma Wright, Louise Cole, Lily St Clair, Maud Riweford [Rimeford / Riverford], Carrie Baliol, Minnie Brymner (forwards); England: May Goodwin [Godwin] (goal), Mabel Bradbury, Maud(e) Hopewell (backs), Maud(e) Starling, Ada Everstone (half-backs), Geraldine Vintner [Ventner], Mabel Vance, Eva Davenport, Minnie Hopewell, Kate Mellon [Mellor], Nelly Sherwood (forwards).
[9] Some newspapers reckoned there were only 400 or 500 paying spectators, while others estimated that more than 5,000 people attended.
[10] It was said their ‘costume was suitable, and at a distance the players could scarcely be distinguished from those in ordinary football matches’.
[11] The stakes had been used to attach the ropes to the ground.
[12] Blackburn Olympic were a team with working-class roots that would win the FA Cup in 1883.
[13] Horatio Paterson and Co., 346 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. The photograph may still be extant, although I have been unable to find it.