Fans will be able to watch a Manchester United women’s team match at Old Trafford for the first time on Sunday, but this 112-year-old ground is not a total stranger to the women’s game.
The club’s women’s side made their debut at the 74,140-capacity stadium last season at a time when spectators were not permitted at the “Theatre of Dreams”, yet the stadium’s women’s football history stretches back more to 1921, as well as having played host to one of the global women’s game’s greatest international matches:
Jan 8, 1921: Dick Kerr Ladies 12, Bath Ladies 0
The first known women’s game at Old Trafford came when the trailblazing Dick Kerr Ladies side were in their heyday. Their legendary star player, Lily Parr, reportedly scored four times as they cruised to victory over Bath, in a game aimed at raising money for former servicemen from the First World War.
More than 35,000 turned up, which was not unusual for Dick Kerr Ladies. Their most famous fixture had come on Boxing Day 1920 at Goodison Park, in front of 53,000. Amid their increasing popularity, women were banned from playing on affiliated grounds by the Football Association later in 1921, with the FA at the time deeming the game “unsuitable for females”. The ban would stand for nearly 50 years.
April 22, 1989: Leasowe Pacific 3, Friends of Fulham 2 (Women’s FA Cup final)
This turned into one of the most dramatic in the competition’s history on the pitch, but it was also by far the most sombre and emotional, in a week when English football was in no mood to celebrate.
Just seven days before the final, the Hillsborough disaster had unfolded. Among the survivors who had been in the Leppings Lane End were Leasowe Pacific team-mates Jill Salisbury, Dianne Coughlin and Cathy Gore.
Salisbury, Coughlin, Gore and the rest of Merseyside-based club Leasowe Pacific – who later became Everton Women, Sunday’s visitors to Old Trafford – were emotional winners against Friends of Fulham, despite a brace from future England manager Hope Powell for the London club, whose star names also included England’s Marieanne Spacey and Brenda Sempare.
The day after the final, both teams visited Anfield to lay a wreath and pay their respect to the Hillsborough victims.
Sept, 2 1990: England 0, Norway 0 (international qualifier)
England were at Old Trafford in a low-key qualifier for the European Championship. The visiting team included Norway great Hege Riise, who went on to be England’s interim head coach in 2021 and to lead Team GB at last summer’s Tokyo Olympics. Spacey, Powell and Sempare were all in England’s starting XI. The attendance was reported as just 435. Norway would qualify for the four-team 1991 Euros and finish runners-up, but England failed to reach the finals.
July 31, 2012: US 1, North Korea 0 (London Olympics, Group G)
After a 22-year wait, women’s football returned to Old Trafford twice during the 2012 Olympics and the first of those fixtures was an interesting political match-up to say the least, as the United States beat North Korea. Iconic American striker Abby Wambach scored the only goal to clinch their place in the quarter-finals, in front of a crowd of 29,522. On the same night, Team GB beat Brazil at Wembley in front of a then-British record crowd of 70,584.
Aug 6, 2012: Canada 3, US 4 (aet, Olympics semi-final)
After a hat-trick from Canada’s Christine Sinclair, the world’s all-time record international goalscorer for men’s or women’s football, the US’s Alex Morgan headed in a 123rd-minute winner in stoppage time at the end of extra time to settle an end-to-end classic. The US went on to win the gold medal by beating Japan at Wembley, where the attendance of 80,203 remains the largest crowd for a women’s match recorded in the UK.
March 27, 2021: Manchester United 2, West Ham 0 (WSL)
In the midst of coronavirus lockdown rules with no fans allowed in the ground, Manchester United finally made their Old Trafford debut last season, against West Ham. Forward Lauren James flicked in the team’s first goal at the venue shortly after half-time, before US star Christen Press doubled the lead.
