 Women's football has been around for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years – in fact, it is believed that it has existed for the same amount of time as men's football has, simply because when it was initially invented both sexes were allowed (and encouraged) to play. Aside from the early Chinese game of Tsu Chu, which was very similar to the football (soccer) game which is played today, there is also evidence to suggest that women played football in twelfth century France. A few centuries later, women were believed to have played football in Scotland. The first instance of women playing the game in England (or at least, the first time it was documented) was in 1895. This landmark game came about as a result of the work of a women's rights campaigner, Nettie Honeyball, who believed that women should (and could) play the game of football just as well as any man.
Women's football did not become properly established until the first World War, which saw hundreds of thousands of men called to fight. The sudden decrease in the number of able-bodied males left a huge void – not only in the work force, but in sporting teams as well. Just as women began to play baseball professionally in America as a result of the many thousands of American men leaving to fight in World War II; women began to play football in the UK as a direct result of the loss of men to World War I. The first international matches were held in 1920, but the game was discouraged in 1921 when the Football Association (FA) banned women from playing the game on FA member pitches. It wasn't until the 1960's that football for women really began to bounce back to the state of success it had achieved leading up to the 1920's.
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