AS MEN’S grip on the levers of power began began to be loosened by the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave the vote to property-owning women aged over 30, so their dominance of the football pitch was also being challenged.

The Dick Kerr’s Ladies are perhaps the most well-known team of the era, famously playing St Helen’s Ladies in front of a sell-out 58,000 on Christmas Day 1920, but they were by no means alone.

This huge popularity of women’s football was reflected in a series of comic book stories based around female players, one of which, believe it or not, was called Ray of the Rovers.