Magpie Miscellany Part 15
When Honeyball’s Female Pioneers drew thousands to York Road
Maidenhead United’s women's team was set up in 2008 and has gone on to track the inexorably upward trend of the game as a whole. As I write they look set fair to retain their status in the fourth tier of the domestic structure for the eighth successive season.
The belated development of the team reflects the disgraceful historic treatment of the women’s game by the FA. In 1921 the FA effectively banned women’s football by forbidding any member club to host matches, a ruling that was not overturned until 1969.
The 1921 ban came at a time of burgeoning popularity for the women’s in the aftermath of World War One which had seen the development of ‘Mutionettes’ teams made up of female workers from armaments factories. One such team had played at Kidwells Park, home of the Norfolkians, in 1918. However you have to go back to 1895 for the first recorded women’s match at York Road, when what is reputed to be the first female Association Football club, played one of their earliest fixtures there.
The British Ladies Football Club was formed in late 1894 by Nettie Honeyball in North London. In the New Year Bray resident Lady Florence Dixie was appointed President with the Maidenhead Advertiser reporting that: “At present the practice of the club is conducted in private, but the ladies, who are most enthusiastic, intend very shortly to invite the public to attend.” This led to club secretary Honeyball arranging a match at York Road on Easter Monday.
Dixie (pictured right) was an appropriate choice of figure head. A Scottish writer and feminist, her grandfather William Clayton had been MP for Great Marlow. Her eldest brother John, the Marquess of Queensbury, created the rules that became the foundation for modern boxing, but achieved notoriety for instigating the prosecution of Oscar Wilde following the revelation of Wilde’s relationship with his son Alfred Douglas. She shared her brother’s love of sport but not his political views, and became an ardent progressive campaigner, using her role as a novelist to portray strong women and themes of gender equality. In 1883 her support for Irish self determination led to an assassination attempt near her home in the Fisheries. On accepting her appointment as BLFC President she said: “the girls should enter into the spirit of the game with heart and soul.".
BLFC soon attracted enough members to run regular training sessions at Alexandra Park under the guidance of Tottenham Hotspur wing half Bill Julian and played their first match at Crouch End on March 23rd 1895 in front of a 10,000 crowd, with the players being divided into north and south teams. Further matches followed in Brighton and Bury before the club arrived in Berkshire at Easter.
This proved to be an historic weekend for football in Maidenhead in more ways than one, with the men winning their first ever Berks & Bucks Senior Cup on Easter Saturday by beating Marlow at Kidwells Park, whilst on Monday morning they welcomed the Paris Association for a friendly.
Honeyball hired the York Round ground in the afternoon for £5 with the opportunity to keep all the gate money. She also scheduled a match at Reading in the morning. When the players arrived by train from the first match in Biscuitopolis, they headed straight to the MFC headquarters at The Bell pub (now O’Neill’s)
Unfortunately some of the players were delayed so the teams were 8 a side with a man in goal at each end. The North wore red, the South blue.
Playing 30 minutes each way, the Blues led 3-1 at half time having the slope in their favour. The Reds (pictured left before their first match at Crouch End) levelled the score, only for the Blues to take the lead again before a final equaliser saw the game finish 4-4.
The crowd was estimated as being between 3-4 thousand and paid over £54 in gate money (equivalent to over £9,000 at 2023 prices). In contrast the crowd for Maidenhead’s Cup Final win at Kidwells Park two days earlier was only 1,772, whilst the morning match between Maidenhead and Paris failed to attract four figures.
After the match Honeyball (pictured right) spoke to the Maidenhead Advertiser in The Bell: “I formed this club entirely on my own responsibility, because I have been accustomed to athletics all my life with my brothers. Being an expert myself in tennis and cycling, a thought came into my head. Why can’t women play the popular game of football as well as tennis, boating and cricket? I am both captain and promoter. Wherever the girls go I accompany them. I advertised for ladies to form a team in October. Replies? I had dozens but some of the applicants didn’t relish the idea at first to come out in public. They have got over that now though. We have at present 24 playing members with six more on the list ready to play whenever called upon. They are all educated young ladies and belong to what I term the upper middle class. They are mostly all from different parts of London, but we have one from the north. If I accepted all the girls from the masses that made applications to join us, why our list would have been filled long ago. It is my object to let the world know that women are not so silly as men think them to be. I have myself received many letters denouncing our conduct. Such criticism we put down to the ignorance of the writers. I am also glad to say that the tone and the criticism is getting milder.”
Sadly Honeyball was disappointed by the York Road crowd: “The applause was encouraging enough, but the remarks passed by some of the crowd were not all that could be desired. On leaving, several of the girls were insulted by youths and boys. At Bury, in Lancashire, where we played last week before a crowd of working men, we had a magnificent reception and we were treated throughout as we ought to be.”
Indeed the Advertiser reporter described the match as a “farce” whilst columnist ‘Trifler’ said it was “a feeble exhibition, more fun than football, the large and curious crowd were disappointed at the ladies’ display”. ‘Looker-On’ thought the “impression they created was expressed by shrugs rather than words”.
The following autumn, the team looked to return to the area with a match at Burnham but the local club declined the offer due to fears that the gate would not be big enough.
Sources:
HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION
Spartacus Education: Nettie Honeyball
Wikipedia: British Ladies FC, Lady Florence Dixie, Nettie Honeyball
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