ONE hundred years ago today, one of the earliest floodlit matches recorded on film was played on a Thursday night at Deepdale, Preston.

Two years after the Armistice ended the Great War, over 10,000 paying spectators raised over £600 for unemployed servicemen — and they came to watch two teams of women play football.

Titled “Soccer by Searchlight,” British Pathe described the occasion as a “novel game played for ex-service unemployed fund won by Dick Kerrs Ladies’ (sic) Football Team.”