Women’s Football Association founded: the governing body built while the ban still stood (1969)
The Womens Football Association founded on Saturday 1 November 1969 gave the English women’s game its first national governing body, created when 44 clubs sent delegates to a meeting at Caxton Hall in London. The extraordinary part is the date. The FA’s 1921 order barring women from its grounds was still in force that afternoon, so the women organised their own game because the men who ran the sport had locked them out. It is the moment English women’s football began to run itself, in open defiance of the men’s game, one of the sport’s sharpest rivalries over who controlled it.
A game the FA had tried to bury in 1921 was rebuilt by the clubs it had shut out, and the body they founded made a cup and a national team before handing everything back in 1993.
Key Facts
- The Women’s Football Association was founded on Saturday 1 November 1969, when 44 clubs sent delegates to Caxton Hall in London.
- It formed while the FA’s 1921 ban on women’s football still stood. The FA Council did not vote to lift that ban until 19 January 1970, more than two months later.
- Before the ban, the women’s game was thriving: about 150 women’s clubs by 1921 and crowds reaching 45,000.
- The FA barred women from affiliated grounds in December 1921 on the grounds that football was unsuitable for them, which pushed the game into public parks for almost 50 years.
- The WFA’s first secretary was Arthur Hobbs, called the “Father of Women’s football”, who had tried to stage a women’s tournament in Deal, Kent before the ban blocked him.
- The WFA created the competition that became the Women’s FA Cup, first played in 1971 and won by Southampton, and an official England women’s team in 1972.
- In 1993 the WFA handed its work to the FA, the same body that had banned the game, having run out of money to grow it.
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The Game the FA Buried in 1921
Fifty Thousand Crowds, Then a Ban
The women’s game was no novelty in England. By 1921 there were roughly 150 women’s clubs, and the best-supported matches drew crowds as large as 45,000. This was a serious sport with a serious following, grown through the First World War while the men were away.
The FA’s answer, in December 1921, was to strangle it. It shut women out of the grounds and pitches of affiliated clubs, and the words of the resolution have followed it ever since: football, it declared, was “quite unsuitable for females”. The effect was not a fine or a warning. The ruling drove the women’s game off affiliated grounds and into public parks, and kept it there for close to half a century. A thriving sport was not regulated. It was exiled.
The Womens Football Association Founded on 1 November 1969
Forty-Four Clubs at Caxton Hall
By the late 1960s the exile was breaking down in practice if not in law. The driving force was Arthur Hobbs, known as the “Father of Women’s football”. He had already run into the ban himself: he tried to run a women’s tournament in Deal, Kent, and was blocked because the host club came under the Kent FA, and so under the ban. A game the FA would not sanction needed a body of its own.
That body arrived on 1 November 1969. Forty-four clubs sent delegates to its opening meeting at Caxton Hall in London, and it was independent of the FA from the start. Hobbs, a carpenter, was the man who made the day happen.
The momentum was real. The scattered regional game began pulling itself into a national body, and the WFA held its first annual general meeting on 6 June 1970, with a full slate of officers elected. A game that had been played across public parks was organising itself at speed.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| December 1921 | The FA bars women from affiliated grounds, calling the game unsuitable for females |
| 1 November 1969 | The Women’s Football Association is founded by 44 clubs at Caxton Hall |
| 19 January 1970 | The FA Council votes to lift the 1921 ban |
| 1971 | The first Women’s FA Cup final; Southampton win |
| 1972 | The WFA fields an official England women’s team |
| 1993 | The WFA hands its work to the FA |
Founded Before the Ban Was Lifted
The WFA was founded on 1 November 1969. The FA did not finally overturn its 1921 resolution until the FA Council met on 19 January 1970. The women did not wait to be allowed: they built their association first and were legitimised second, more than two months after the fact.
There is a sour footnote. Pat Dunn, the WFA’s first chair, held the role only briefly, stepping down in 1970, when a man, the West Midlands referee Pat Gwynne, took over. A body founded because women had been shut out of the men’s game had a man at its head soon after.
What the WFA Built, and Gave Away
A Cup, a National Team, and a Handover
The WFA did not stay a committee. It built the two things that turn a pastime into a sport: a knockout cup and a national team. The competition it started, first played in 1971, became the Women’s FA Cup; Southampton won that first final and took the trophy in eight of its first eleven years. A year on, the WFA put out an official England women’s team, which played its first international in Scotland in November 1972, winning 3-2. The scaffolding the modern game stands on was raised here, by volunteers, on pitches the sport’s own governing body had until lately forbidden them.
The ending is quieter than the founding. In 1993 the WFA voted to pass its work to the FA, because it could no longer afford to grow the game. The body that had spent 24 years running women’s football without the FA handed the whole enterprise to the FA, the institution that had banned it in 1921. The following season was the first in which the WFA Cup ran under the FA’s own control, with 137 teams entering.
READ MORE: More of the days that made the game, in our On This Day series →
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About the Founding of the Women’s Football Association
When was the Women’s Football Association founded?
The Women’s Football Association was founded on Saturday 1 November 1969, when 44 clubs sent delegates to Caxton Hall in London. It was the first national governing body for women’s football in England, and it was set up independently of the FA.
Why did women have to form their own football association in 1969?
Because the FA had banned them from its grounds. In December 1921 the FA shut women’s football out of affiliated pitches, deeming the game unsuitable for females. That ban was still in force in 1969, so the women set up their own body rather than wait for permission. The FA did not vote to lift the ban until 19 January 1970.
Was the Womens Football Association founded before or after the FA lifted its 1921 ban?
Before. The WFA was founded on 1 November 1969, and the FA Council did not vote to overturn the 1921 ban until 19 January 1970, more than two months later. The women built their association while the ban still stood, and were legitimised only afterwards. The January 1970 vote was the point at which the FA finally acted.
What was the FA’s 1921 ban on women’s football?
In December 1921 the FA barred women from playing on the grounds and pitches of affiliated clubs, declaring football “quite unsuitable for females”. The ban followed a boom: about 150 women’s clubs by 1921 and crowds reaching 45,000. It drove the women’s game into public parks and unaffiliated grounds for almost 50 years.
Who founded the Women’s Football Association?
The driving force was Arthur Hobbs, a carpenter and the WFA’s first secretary, known as the “Father of Women’s football”. He had tried to organise a women’s tournament in Deal, Kent, but was stopped because the local club was bound by the FA ban. The founding meeting itself drew delegates from 44 clubs.
Where was the WFA’s first meeting held?
The inaugural meeting was held at Caxton Hall in London on 1 November 1969. Delegates from 44 clubs attended. The WFA went on to hold its first annual general meeting on 6 June 1970, a sign of how fast the scattered game was organising into a national body.
Who was Pat Dunn, the WFA’s first chair?
Pat Dunn was the first chair of the Women’s Football Association. Her tenure was brief: she stepped down in 1970, and a man, the West Midlands referee Pat Gwynne, took over as chair.
What competitions did the Women’s Football Association run?
The WFA started the national knockout cup that became the Women’s FA Cup, first played in 1971 and won by Southampton, who took it in eight of its first eleven years. A year after that first cup, the WFA fielded an official England women’s team, which played its first international in Scotland in November 1972. It ran both until 1993.
When did Southampton win the first Women’s FA Cup?
Southampton won the first final in 1971. The competition, launched by the WFA, was the forerunner of the modern Women’s FA Cup. Southampton took the trophy in eight of its opening eleven years, which made them the dominant side of the WFA’s early era.
What happened to the Women’s Football Association?
In 1993 the WFA voted to pass its work to the FA, because the association could no longer afford to develop the game. The following season was the first in which the WFA Cup ran under direct FA control, with 137 teams entering. The body that had run women’s football without the FA for 24 years handed it to the institution that had banned it in 1921.
Why does the founding of the WFA matter?
Because it is the point at which English women’s football began to govern itself, after almost 50 years of being shut out by the men’s game. The structures the WFA raised from 1 November 1969, a national cup and an England team, are the foundations the modern women’s game still rests on. It matters that volunteers built them in defiance of a ban that had not yet been lifted.
The Women’s Football Association, and the Day It Began
Forty-four clubs, a hired hall in Westminster, and a ban that would not be lifted for another two months: the Women’s Football Association began on 1 November 1969 with none of the sanction the men’s game took for granted, and built a cup and a country’s team regardless. The story of who ran the game, and who was shut out of it, runs all the way through our On This Day series, and the days the game changed for good sit alongside it in Football Rivalries.
Sources: The FA, Dorset FA, WFA History.
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