On a wet Thursday night in Workington nearly 70 years ago 2,800 spectators watched a game of ladies football!
It was refereed by one of the great names of English football management, Bill Shankly, and was played on a rugby union pitch – Ellis Sports Ground.
Cumbria Crack revealed earlier in the week how, when the women’s game had been banned by the FA, this one-off ‘international’ was played on a July night in West Cumberland.
Dick Kerr’s very successful women’s team from Preston met a French side from Paris at the home of Workington Zebras.
It appears that the score was 4-0 to the English team as details are reproduced here from the following week’s edition of the Whitehaven News as tracked down by current Reds director Les Byers.
The original match programme is part of a collection that former local goalkeeper Billy Monan had been sifting through, and thought was topical in view of the Euros success of the England team.
Shankly was Reds manager at the time and he had helped the Workington groundsman Billy Watson mark out the Ellis for the game which had been arranged by the Reds Supporters Club.
