Fact Sheet 9: A Brief History of Female Football Fans

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1. Introduction

1.1 Until very recently the existence and importance of female football fans in this country has largely been ignored both by researchers and the industry itself. Many commentators seem to think that the female fan is a relatively new phenomenon and one which plays little or no part in the history of the game. However, this is not the case, and while there is little doubt that the numbers of females who attended games in the past were not always large, women seem always to have attended professional football matches.

2. Nineteenth Century Tales

2.1 Hard evidence on female football fans from this period is very sparse, but there are indications of their attendance at matches. Until around the mid 1880s women were usually admitted free, which shows both their presence at football but also suggests that relatively few women attended matches. However, this privilege was abolished at Preston North End in 1885 after an Easter Monday game at which some two thousand women and girls were alleged to have been present. (Mason, 1980) It is unlikely that free admission for women survived for long elsewhere in the country.

2.2 It is widely believed that during the 1890s, with the increasing size of football crowds, the proportion of women at matches fell. Working class women found it very difficult to attend matches, both because of child care responsibilities and cost. Despite this, there is substantial evidence to suggest the continuing presence of women in the grounds. At a Second Division match between Leicester and Everton in 1899, for example, the press reported that 'the fair sex' were present 'in every part of the ground'. Villa Park also drew comment as 'you will find no ladies on the unreserved side' but in the reserved stands 'there are almost as many ladies as men' (Mason, 1980, p.152). Ideas about football stadiums were also beginning to change. When a new stand was built at Anfield in 1906, for example, the local press commented proudly that: 'The entire scheme is modelled on a new departure from what football grounds are generally supposed to be. The stands…. Are as safe as skill and good workmanship can make them.' The famous Spion Kop at Liverpool in the early years of the twentieth century was clearly also used by female fans - though the needs of 'ladies' seemed not to be taken fully into account. The Liverpool Echo carried a letter from a male fan complaining about the narrowness of the new turnstiles. He said that if the club directors thought that: 'any gentleman would ask a lady to squeeze through such an aperture to the destruction of her dress, they are mistaken' (quoted in Inglis, 1996: 219).

3. New Ideals

3.1 With the onset of the First World War the old ideals of femininity began to change. This was especially the case perhaps for more 'middle class' women who experienced the freedom but also the harsh realities of war work in factories or hospitals. Jones (1988. p.64.) believes that: 'Active participation in the war economy, together with the demographic transformation wrought by the loss of male soldiers and of course the pre-war campaign for female suffrage, meant that women emerged in the 1920s more independent and sure of themselves.' What this meant was that, although women were still subordinate within society, they were now able to express themselves in new ways, one of which was through their increasing involvement in sport.

3.2 Between the two World Wars the situation for female football fans in Britain slowly began to change as the recollections below from an early fan reveal:

'I was born in 1916 and my father took me when 1 was nearly six. I had to go. The situation was that my mother worked very hard in those days, because my father didn't have a job, and she thought Saturdays should be hers to do as she wanted to. Having two girls, she said to my father, 'You take one, I take the other. If you want to go to football, you take one of them,' He just looked at the two of us and said, 'I'll have that one,' and that was me, because 1 was the noisiest. He took me and drilled me all the way there... I soon got interested and began to feel that I knew the players, that he should pass to him, that somebody should run down the wing with the ball, and it all clicked. I think I was born with a football brain.' (Rose Jales quoted in Taylor & Ward, 1995, p.11)

4. Increasing Respectability

4.1 Between the two World Wars the involvement of women as spectators at football matches grew. The reasons for this growth are generally associated with the increasing 'respectability' of football, mainly due to the improvement of grounds, and the slowly improving behavioural standards among football crowds. This increase in numbers of female fans did not go unnoticed by the press. For example, a reporter commenting on the 1927 Cup Final noted that: 'A remarkable feature was the number of women who had accompanied their husbands and sweethearts. Many carried babies in their arms and confessed they had brought them to see the cup tie.' Again at the Cup Final two years later, it was reported that 'at least 50 per cent' of the train loads making the trip to Wembley were women. (Dunning et al, 1988, p.99)

4.2 Brentford FC was one club which seemed to have gained a considerable amount of female support between the wars, leading to the club being referred to in the press as the 'ladies team'. Also, special transport was provided for women fans of Brentford by the City Corporation (Dunning et al, 1988, p.101) A photograph taken of the crowd at Swindon Town in 1927 shows that 8 of the visible 55 supporters were female, and one taken in 1938 shows 11 females out of 50 supporters. A proportion of these were in small female groups which may suggest that young single women were probably more likely to have the freedom to go to matches without the responsibility of ties which come with a husband and children (Fishwick, 1989). The growing female interest in the game was reflected in a column written in the Leicester Mercury in 1923 entitled 'Women Thrilled by Football - Quite Under Its Sway' which stated:

'It indicates a great enthusiasm when people will stand for half an hour to witness a match, but when women will stand (as they do ) for unlimited time with the rain pelting down upon her pretty clothes, ruining her hat and her comfort, it shows an interest amounting almost to heroism.' (quoted in Dunning et al, 1988, p.100)

5. Prejudice

5.1 Not all men welcomed this apparent growth in the number of female fans at football, often seeing it as an 'invasion' of their leisure space. Women supporters tended to be stereotyped as 'middle class', and thus obviously ignorant of the game. Fishwick (1989, p.57) highlights an example of this prejudice by a male Sheffield Wednesday fan who replied in the local press to the criticisms from two female United fans in 1925: 'When will women cease to butt into men's affairs? Anyone can travel to away matches when they have the necessary means. All praise to the man who pays his humble "bob".' The women concerned wrote back to point out that they were 'shilling supporters' themselves, and that 'women will never cease to "butt into men's affairs" so long as they interest them.'

5.2 Female fans were also more likely to be judged critically by the press. One reporter in 1930 wrote about: 'one of the Wednesday's female fans, complete with… warpaint, clanging one of the noisiest bells ever cast in my left ear .judging from her expression she'd have wrung an opposing goalscorer's neck' (Fishwick, 1989, p.57) It was most probably the case that this fan was not behaving much differently from the other supporters at the game, but drew comment purely on the grounds of her sex.

5.3 It must be remembered that at this time the FA banned the use of affiliated grounds for women's football matches, which had grown very popular during the First World War and sometimes attracted crowds exceeding that of male matches. The reasons given were that the game was 'unsuitable' for women, along with alleged corruption in the women's game. However, it is more likely that the large crowds at female matches caused anxiety in the male game which was determined to hold on to its audience after the War.

6. The Post-Second World War Period

6.1 For the period immediately after 1945, information on female football fans is somewhat limited. Fishwick (1989) believes that since 1950 there had been an increase in more family-based leisure pursuits, which may account for the falling number of football fans in general, and female fans specifically. From the late 1950s there were also growing fears about the emergence of violence and hooliganism at football matches, which, not surprisingly, affected the attendance of female fans. However, it seems that not all women were discouraged in this way. There were a number of female fans who formed the 'Ladies Committees' on local supporters clubs. These women were not allowed to contribute to the making of policy decisions for fans, and so their attention was diverted to the task of raising funds for their clubs etc. (Williams & Woodhouse, 1991)

6.2 Williams & Woodhouse (1991) state that despite some objections from women, the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs continued to organise a national competition to find the season's 'Football Queen'. The award was designed to reward committed female support, but as a number of female opponents pointed out, it mysteriously tended to be the younger and conventionally 'attractive' women fans who stood any chance of winning the prize. (National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs, 1954, p.27)

6.3 The 1960s produced signs of a new social climate in Britain. With the growth of ideas about female liberation and equality, women were offered more freedom to participate more readily in traditionally male pursuits. This again was reflected in the attendance of females at football matches. One male fan remembers the growth of female support during this period:

'There was hardly any women then. In the group we went with I can't remember any other women being there, when I first started going. More women started coming late 60sl 70s. It was younger women wanting to go with their boyfriends. Before then it was the young men went off to watch their football on Saturday afternoons and didn't dream of taking their girlfriends with them. But then the 60s and 70s were more rebellious years and all of a sudden, I suppose, the girls started saying: Why can't I come? And there's far more now than I've ever seen.' (Tina Evans, an Arsenal supporter quoted in Watt, 1993, p.272)

6.4 With the staging of the World Cup finals in England in 1966 there was an active campaign to 'reconstruct' the game's image and attract fans back to matches. One focus of this campaign was female fans. For example, television coverage offered women instruction on the complexities of the offside rule, as presumably was the message, all men already knew the rules. Certainly, the World Cup finals attracted a huge TV audience - including women - and inspired many females to become both fans and players of the sport in England. The Women's FA was established soon after, in 1969 (Woodhouse & Williams, 1991)

7. The Era of Hooliganism

7.1 The 1970s heralded a new era of football in England, one linked to the emergence of fan hooliganism on a much larger scale. This was a time in which the image of football suffered badly by its association with scenes of fighting and violence among young male fans. Attendance at football matches in this period continued to fall from the immediate post-war high, and many female fans stopped attending matches. This is illustrated by the comments of one female fan from the time who stated:

'We had season tickets (at Nottingham Forest) and we were on the stand on the halfway line and the Leicester supporters picked up stones and threw them at us. It was really frightening. So I said, 'That's it, if that's football I'm not going anymore' (Maud Gascoyne quoted in Taylor & Ward, 1995, p.256)

7.2 In more recent times, the discussion of female football fans has often been inextricably linked to debates about violence and disorder by young male spectators. Here, in some accounts, the attendance of women is supposed to have had a 'civilising' effect on such behaviour. Following disturbances involving English football fans, most notably at Heysel in 1985, the British Government gave support for initiatives such as family areas and membership schemes in order to try to curb the violence - or protect female and other 'family' fans. However, many female fans argued against watching matches from these so - called 'safe areas' preferring the traditional home terraces. (See Woodhouse, 1991)

7.3 Despite these fears about hooliganism, women spectators on average probably made up between 5% and 15% of the live football audience in the 1980s, depending upon the type of club. At a number of clubs - again Brentford was to the fore - it seems that up to one fifth of the football crowd may have been female. (Williams et al, 1989)

7.4 After the Hillsborough Stadium disaster of 1989, which claimed the lives of nine female fans, women spectators were, in some respects, looked to as a possible prop for wider changes in the game. The Taylor Report of 1990, when citing the recommendation that all British stadiums become all seated by the turn of the century, stated that:

'When a spectator is seated...small or infirm or elderly men and women as well as young children are not buffeted, smothered or unsighted by larger and more robust people on the terraces.' (Taylor, 1990, p. 12)

7.5 It was also at this time, however, that the supposed role of women fans as 'calming' influences on volatile crowds was criticised both for the supposed shifting of responsibility for male violence onto women and also for the lack of concern for the effects of such policies on females themselves (Scraton, 1990).

7.6 It is only really in the 1990s that female fans have been taken seriously as a focus for serious research. Woodhouse, for example, undertook a survey of female members of the Football Supporters Association (FSA) in 1991. This research shows that more than 7 out of 10 of the female sample watched more than 15 home matches a season and over half claimed to watch all home games. Although FSA members are more likely to have a stronger commitment to the game, this result does suggest that regular attendance is perhaps a 'typical' characteristic of female fans in general, a group perhaps traditionally considered to be made up of 'casual' supporters. This research also highlighted something of a conflict for women between their identities as females and as football fans. The study shows that most female fans were aware of sexism within the game but they did not regard their sex as an important issue in relation to their identity as fans. Their view was that fandom itself is important - not the respective sex of supporters.

7.7 Some female fans were also cautious about, or in some cases even hostile towards, changes which threatened to 'feminise' the game. Many stated that they actually liked the game as it is, while others were concerned about drawing further accusations from male supporters about their status as 'real' fans. One concern among female fans about attracting more female spectators to football is that doing so might result in a reduction in the 'atmosphere' at matches. However, the majority of respondents were in favour of the greater involvement of women as administrators, officials and so on in the game due to the belief that this would be concerned.

7.8 The chart below highlights the response to the question concerning whether the respondents felt that the atmosphere at matches was overly aggressive or macho. Almost 8 out of 10 said that this was hardly or never the case and well over half said that they positively enjoyed the atmosphere.

'Do you ever find the atmosphere at matches overly aggressive/macho?'

Source: Woodhouse 1991, p.24

7.9 Female fans in the survey also felt that football culture in this country is actually a microcosm of gender relations in society as a whole. Therefore, the only way in which more women will be encouraged to watch matches is by attacking the roots of the culture. As one female fan put it:

'Football only really presents a picture of society as it is - rules made by men, with women trying to 'fit in' as best they can and chip away at the edges. Until basic social attitudes of male superiority change, all the pretty toilets in the world won't make any difference.' (Cardiff City fan in her 30s, in Woodhouse, 1991, p.33)

8. The Growing Role of Women in the Game

8.1 In the new century the number of female football fans at top matches in England has been argued to have increased substantially. In 1997 about 12% of FA Premier League fans are female. In 2001 this figure rose to 15%. At clubs such as Ipswich Town and Leicester city more than one in five of all season ticket holders are female (see Williams et al 2001). There have been active policies by a number of clubs to attract women back to football, such as creche facilities and improved family areas. Also the reduction in incidences of hooliganism and violence have been a factor in this recent growth in female support. So too has been the changing cultural profile of football and the improvement in stadium facilities. There are also now a slowly growing number of women involved in the running of the sport, including Head of Football Development at the FA, Kelly Simmons, Rachel Heyhow Flint, a director at Wolverhampton Wanderers, TV cook Delia Smith at Norwich City and Karren Brady, Managing Director at Birmingham City. Delia Smith bought her way onto the board at Norwich by paying £1 million for places for herself and her husband in 1996 and she is clearly a committed fan who has pumped more money into the club since. In September 2000 Delia told the Daily Telegraph (25 September):

'I like to sit down with my friends and have a really good bitch. And when I go to football matches, I am at my most misbehaved. I sing rude songs about the opposition, such as "Stand up if you hate the scum." But I don't sing the ones with swear words. I don't think they are very nice.'

8.2 Another outspoken woman in football is Susan Reynolds, the wife of Darlington Chairman George Reynolds. She recently shocked a club meeting by criticising a club director for behaving as if he was 'bigger than God', and accused the club's players of playing as if they were 'throwing games' at the end of the 2001/2002 season. Needless to say neither players of manager were impressed with her performance though other figures connected with the club praised her 'honesty' (The Times, 2 March 2002)

8.3 Coupled with this growing number of female officials are the growing number of female football journalists and television presenters, such as Gaby Logan and Amy Lawrence. Although these women are still very much in a minority within the industry, their involvement does illustrate the 'opening up' of the sport to female administrators and commentators (see Williams and Woodhouse, 1999). Around the rest of the world the barriers are also slowly coming down to female participation in football - at least as fans. In November 2001 about 300 female Irish fans were the first women allowed to watch their country play in Iran - in a World Cup qualifier in Iran. No Iranian women were allowed to attend, but Alison Kervin of The Times (16 November 2001) reported:

'There was no sign that the Iranian men had any great problem with the sight of women in the stadium…Like many things in Iran, the Islamic strictures that make life difficult on the outside disappear once you are on the inside…. Few in Iran ever imagined that women would one day go to football games. The sport is, to them, the very embodiment of all things masculine and powerful.'

8.4 If girls can't play football 'like' the men, is their watching football also a qualitatively different activity? Crolley and Long (2001) found going to football matches for young girls in the city of Liverpool is, certainly, a very special experience. 'Jane' commented:

'The match atmosphere attracted us in the same way as it would attract lads, but we were different. There were never any pressures on us to be 'macho', to 'act like men', to grow up before we wanted to, or to join in the fighting in Stanley Park and along Utting Avenue after the game. We could even go along to watch with immunity. Female fans enjoyed a freedom to appreciate football culture and on top of it all the men made us feel special, looked after us, protected us from swaying crowds and generally spoiled us. We became part of a big family, our football family.'

8.5 The authors argue that this notion of the 'football family' has probably always existed at Liverpool, and elsewhere. Perhaps in the past there were not as many females in 'the family' as there are today, but the idea of football being a 'family' experience, in this wider sense, is not a new one. Most people at clubs such as Liverpool enjoy the company and support of the 'football family', a series of connections in a complex but largely informal network of relationships. To be included on the Kop, in this way, or as a loyal traveller, is to belong, to have a place in the culture, to have a role which, for female supporters can be attractively transgressive. Even in the mid-1980s, at the height of the hooliganism panic about football, young female fans at clubs such as Liverpool could speak warmly - if perhaps a little idealistically - about their experiences 'at the match'. Here is a 15 year old female fan who lives in the city of Liverpool talks about her perceptions of the Kop 'family' in the 1980s (Williams, 1987: 23):

'When I go to the match I go on the Kop. I have only ever been to the stands [seats] once and the atmosphere wasn't as good as on the Kop. When you are in the Kop you are close to everyone and they sing more and make the atmosphere brilliant. You forget everything else on your mind at the match. The people in the Kop are good. They share and let all the little kids in at the front. They always make sure you can see on the Kop. When I go to the match I go with my dad, my uncle and my brother who is 11. When Liverpool play Everton my other uncle and his son come. Though these are Evertonians, we all stand together, Liverpudlians and Evertonians. It's a great atmosphere.'

9. Fan Survey Data

9.1 The most recent and up to date information we have on female football fans in this country comes from the 2001 FA Premier League Fan Survey and the Football League Worthington Fans Feedback survey from the same year (Williams et al, 2001a; 2001b). The FA Premier League survey involves replies from over 29,000 FA Premier League fans drawn from all the 20 FA Premier League clubs in the 2000/2001 season, and the Football League survey involves over 13,000 replies from 23 clubs. This total sample of 43,156 includes more than 5,000 female supporters

9.2 The table below represents the percentage of female fans, as reported in the survey, at each of the clubs of the FA Premier League (season ticket fans) and all fans at clubs in the 2001 Football League survey.

Figure 1: Season Ticket Female Fans, 2001 Football League females (%)

Source: Williams et al 2001

9.3 The research suggests, as did the FSA survey of 1991, that female fans are highly committed: most female fans are season ticket holders and female fans are also strong attenders at away matches. Of the Football League female fans in the 2001 survey 16% watched another Football League club (24% for males); 36% watched the club's reserve or youth team at least once or twice a season (32% for males) and 18% attended England matches (21% for males). Female fans tend to be younger, on average, than male fans and to be more likely than male fans to attend matches with a partner or spouse. Female Football League fans are less likely than males to go to a pub before matches (22% compared to 35%). Female fans also tend to be more likely to purchase club merchandise than other fans and to be more likely to be taken to matches later than male fans when children.

9.4 In the 2000 FA Premier League fan survey we established that 61% of all fans who attend with children attend only with boys; 17% of fans bring girls only and 22% bring both boys and girls. 1% of all fans now watch top matches in all-female groups. Females tend to enjoy aspects of matchday presentation in the FA Premier League rather more than do men. Thus, 65% of female fans like the club mascot (45% for males) and 31% like the music/public address activities (22% for males).

10. Conclusion

10.1 The history of female football fans in England has been a chequered one. Changing social climates since the advent of professional football may have affected their attendance at football matches. In times when the redefining of sexual barriers has occurred, such as during and after the World Wars and the 1960s, it seems as if women have been more able to assert themselves in the traditionally male preserve of attending football matches. Likewise, when the climate at football has been more hostile - or violent - the reduction in the number of female fans is always evident.

10.2 Although female fans have always been, and still are, in a minority at football, it does seem as if more women are now attracted to the sport as fans. With the recent growth in women's football and the increasing numbers of female administrators, officials, journalists and so on, women are now starting to find their voice within the industry. There are still many areas which need to be addressed and improved in terms of provision for female spectators, but much has been done in this area since 1990. The new marketing and presentation of the sport has also had an effect here. Today's top younger players are personalities and sex symbols and are sold across a range of markets, many of which are accessed primarily by females. Football clubs and the industry itself now realise the commercial potential of female support - and the signal that attending females send out about the direction and ambitions of the sport. Perhaps only now are women beginning to be more widely accepted as 'knowledgeable' fans who have an important place in the game.

References and Further Reading

Coddington, A. (1997) One of the Lads: Women Who Follow Football, Mainstream Press

Dunning E., Murphy P., & Williams J. (1988) The Roots of Football Hooliganism, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.

Fishwick N. (1989) English Football and Society, 1910-1950, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

'The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: Final Report' Inquiry by Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Taylor (1990) London HMSO..

Jones S. G. (1988) Sport, Politics and the Working Class, Manchester University Press, Manchester.

Mason T. (1980) Association Football and English Society 1863-1915, The Harvester Press, Brighton.

National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs, 1954, Minutes of the Annual General Meeting.

Scraton P. (1990) 'A game to make a man of you ....unreconstructed of course', Letter to The Guardian, 29th January.

Taylor R. & Ward A. (1993) Three Sides of the Mersey, An Oral History of Everton, Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers, Robson Books, London.

Taylor R. & Ward A. (1995) Kicking and Screaming, An Oral History of Football in England, Robson Books, London.

Watt T. (1993) The End: 80 Years of Life on Arsenal's North Bank, Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh.

Williams, J. (1987) 'Young people's images of attending football matches in Liverpool', SNCCFR, University of Leicester

Williams J., Dunning E. & Murphy P. (1989) 'Football and Football Spectators After Hillsborough: A National Survey of Members of the Football Supporters Association', Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research.

Williams J. & Woodhouse J. (1991) 'Can Play, Will Play? Women and Football in Britain', in Williams J. & Wagg S. (1991) British Football and Social Change, Leicester University Press, Leicester.

Williams, J. et al (2001a) FA Premier League National Fan Survey, SNCCFR, University of Leicester.

Williams, J. et al (2001b) Football League Supporter Surveys: Worthington Fans Feedback, SNCCFR, University of Leicester.

Williams J. & Woodhouse D. (1999) Offside: the Position of Women in Football, South Street Press

Woodhouse J. (1991) 'A National Survey of Female Football Fans', Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, University of Leicester.

© University of Leicester

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