Coalville Munition Girls FC of World War One: Winners of the Bass Charity Vase

21/06/2024  -  3.59

Steve Bolton

Bass Charity Vase and Committee. Source: 1989 Centenary Match Programme - Lizzy Ashcroft Collection

Burton upon Trent

The enormous trophy pictured above is now kept safely at Burton Town Hall. The trophy has been competed for 134 years and is still going strong. There used to be a great many of these regional trophies attracting the big names of football but this is the one surviving trophy. There is one particular name on this trophy which may cause a great deal of surprise. Read on.

Bass Charity Vase Winners 1889-1988

100 Years of Winners. Source: 1989 Centenary Match Programme - Lizzy Ashcroft Collection

1918 Coalville Munition Girls

The early entries in the winners table read like a who’s who of male midlands football: Derby County, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Leicester Fosse and then in World War One, after two years of ‘No Competition’ we see the entry ‘Coalville Munition Girls’. This is an achievement in a male dominated world that no other women’s team has ever made. I have written about the teams that were famous nationally in World War One such as the Portsmouth Ladies and the Sterling Ladies - the Dagenham Invincibles but I must confess that when I came across the Coalville team in 2022, I was astonished to think that one of the shields on this enormous and prestigious trophy belonged to women’s team from 1918. 

History of Women’s Football 

Royal Arsenal Munitionettes Football Team. Source: BNA - Daily Mirror, Monday 13 August 1917, Page 7

Women’s Football - Banned in 1902

The timeline below gives an overview of early women’s football history to give some context to this article. 

1881 – ‘Scotland’ v ‘England’ Tour
Most historians now accept that this was associated with Music Hall Troupes. The tour descended into chaos with riots at games and this was heavily reported across Britain and Ireland.

1895 – British Ladies Tour
This was initially a more ‘middle class’ attempt to legitimise women’s football. The famous ‘Crouch End Game’ received some positive coverage but the eventual overall media outcome led to negative articles numbering in the thousands. It is also worth noting that in his autobiography in 1935, the man who signed off the 1921 English FA Ban, Sir Frederick Wall watched the Crouch End game and decided there and then that ‘…football was unsuitable for women’.

1902 – 1st English FA Ban
“Item 23- It was decided to instruct affiliated Associations to refuse permission for its players to play against lady football teams.” It is important to remember that Britain had just come to the end of the Victorian era and this ban was widely interpreted as including all women’s games.

1914 – Portsmouth Women’s Game Banned from Fratton Park
On Thursday 19 March a crowd of 5,000 watched a male game and a separate female game at the United Services Sports Ground, Pitt Street. The Directors of Portsmouth FC had denied the use of Fratton Park because there was to be a female game, citing the 1902 English FA Ban. The games were organised to raise money for a submarine fund by the staff of the Royal Yacht and the implementation of the English FA ban caused quite a fuss.

World War One – 250+ Teams Play Over 1,000 Games
By the end of the 1918-1919 ‘war season’ over 1,000 games had been played up and down the land. Most reporting was confined to local media. However, in the early part of the war, the Portsmouth Ladies became nationally famous, featuring regularly with their picture in the Daily Mirror. The nationally and internationally famous team during the war was the Sterling Ladies FC, whose exploits were championed as far away as the New York Herald. They were frequently filmed by Pathe News and were seen in cinemas up and down the land. Other teams were well known in their local areas such as Preston, Blyth, Chelmsford, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff.

1920 - April/May – France Tour England
This was the first nationally significant tour in the British Isles. The national French team played four high profile games against the Preston team, the Dick Kerr Ladies. The team was captained by the glamorous Madeleine ‘Mado’ Bracquemond and included the young Carmen Pomies. This tour received huge media attention and was instrumental in the explosive growth of the women’s game, after a post-World War One lull.

1920 - Saturday 22 May – Lily Parr Debut for St Helens
15-year-old Lily Parr played her one and only known game for St Helens at Ewood Park in their 6 v 0 defeat to the Dick Kerr Ladies. She was described as ‘the success of the side’.

1921 – 1922 The ‘Ban Season’ – 2nd English FA Ban
On 5 December 1921, the English FA signed off its long 49-year ban. The ban was already largely in place by the time of the signing and very few high profile games took place on affiliated pitches during this season.

1923 - St Helens 5 - 1 Dick Kerr Ladies
The game was played in the Queen’s Park in St Helens. Lily Parr scored the consolation goal for the DKL as they were thrashed 5 - 1 by St Helens in their last known game. After this game my granny Lizzy Ashcroft, Lydia Ackers and Susie Chorley were recruited from St Helens to continue their long careers with the Dick Kerr Ladies. Both Susie Chorley and Lizzy ended up as captain with my granny leading only the second ever tour to France.

Up to World War Two - 68 “Internationals” with Belgium and France
In 1925, the Dick Kerr Ladies toured England, Scotland and Northern Ireland with Femina Sport. In 1927 and 1928, Rutherglen Ladies FC toured the UK and Ireland, branding their teams ‘Scotland’ and ‘Ireland’ for various matches. During the 1930s, 68 “Internationals” were played by teams from either France or Belgium touring, usually with Carmen Pomies involved, playing against the Dick Kerr Ladies. In 1939, Edinburgh City Ladies FC recorded over 30 games and a Belgium team, Atalante of Brussels toured to play a 10-game tour against the Dick Kerr Ladies. Many of these games attracted crowds of several to 15,000. This growth was halted by the outbreak of World War Two.

Women’s Football continued to be played after World War Two.

Author’s Note

Woolwich Arsenal Ladies FC, ‘The Rockets’, appear to have been better at posing for the camera than they were at football. So far I have identified seven high profile games for them. Three games were against wounded soldiers where the culture of the day was for the men to ‘sportingly lose’. When they played top women’s sides, the results were that Marconi Ladies FC beat them 7-0, Vickers Crayford 6-1 and the Sterling Ladies 7-1 and 5-0.

In the next part of the article, I give an overview of the matches uncovered so far. The sponsor of the match on Whit Monday is particularly interesting. Sir Oswald Moseley allowed the use of the grounds of Rolleston Hall for a football match with the Munitionettes from Burton-on-Trent against a team of wounded soldiers. The soldiers lost as was the cultural expectation of the day. A hugely popular ‘Ladies Walking Race’ took place. Race walking was extremely popular in the early part of this century.

Coalville and District Munitionettes World War One

Original WW1 Munitionette Postcard. Source: Lizzy Ashcroft Collection

Games for 1917-1918 and 1918-1919 Seasons

1917-1918 Season

●    1918, Saturday 2 February

Coalville Munition Girls 4-1 Burton-on-Trent Munition Girls
Played at Fox and Goose Ground, Coalville for Sailors and Soldiers Guild
Coalville’s first game, Burton had already played ‘several’
Carrie Brierley scored 2

●    1918, Saturday 9 March

Coalville Munition Girls 2-0 Burton-on-Trent Munition Girls
Played at Peel Croft, Burton for Burton Daily Mail Tobacco Fund and Prisoners of War Fund
Carrie Brierley scored 1

Bass Charity Vase Competition
Four teams to compete in two semi-finals followed by a final. All proceeds to go to four charities: Burton Daily Mail Tobacco Fund, Infirmary, Red Cross and Prisoners of War Fund. All games played at Peel Croft.

●    1918, Saturday 23 March - Semi-Final 1

Coalville Munition Girls 3-0 Green’s Pottery Girls (Woodville)
Carrie Brierley scored 3

●    1918, Monday 1st April (Easter Monday) - Semi-Final 2

Shobnall Munition Girls 3-2 Wetmoor Munition Girls (Shock result!)

●    1918, Saturday 6 April - Final

Coalville Munition Girls 3-1 Shobnall Munition Girls

Bass Charity Vase Winners - Coalville Munition Girls FC

●    1918, Saturday 18 May

Burton-on-Trent Munition Girls 8-0 Green’s Pottery Girls (Woodville)
Played at the Gala Field, Newhall on behalf of the South Derbyshire Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Tobacco Fund
The Burton team was chosen from Shobnall + Wetmoor combined munitions teams

●    1918, Monday 20 May

Burton-on-Trent Munition Girls 5-4 Wounded Soldiers
Whit Monday Fete on the grounds of Rolleston Hall
Rolleston Hall was the home of Sir Oswald Moseley

These are the matches I have identified so far for the 1917-1918 season. This was the ‘golden season’ of World War One for women’s football and there is a noticeable decline in games after Easter 1918.

1918-1919 Season

●    1918, Saturday 7 September

Coalville Munition Girls 0-6 Whitwick Munition Girls
Played at Ibstock Agricultural and Horticultural Show
Carrie Brierley scored 5 for Whitwick

●    1918, Saturday 14 September

Coalville Munition Girls 0-6 Whitwick Munition Girls
Played at Ellistown to raise funds for Christmas gifts for local men
Florrie Moon scored 6 for Whitwick

●    1919, Saturday 11 January

Coalville Munition Girls 3-1 Tipton National Fuse Factory Girls
Played at Half-Way House, Coalville 
Carrie Brierley scored 3

Coalville Munition Girls FC - 2024

Article

BBC News Leicester Reporters Sophia Hartley and Dan Martin ran a BBC News Item on 8 June 2024 entitled: “The WW1 women's team who made footballing history”. The article started: “By day they toiled in dirty and dangerous factories, making shells for British forces fighting in World War One. But after their shifts ended, a group of women from Coalville, in Leicestershire, took to football pitches to make sporting history. The Coalville Munitions Girls Football Club remains the only women's side to have won the Bass Charity Vase regional competition in its 134-year history. The little-known story of their unique triumph has now been told in a new BBC podcast - Lost in Time: The Coalville Munitions Girls.”

Podcast - “Lost in Time: The Coalville Munitions Girls”

BBC sports journalist Sophia Hartley and Leicester City Football Club historian Elsie Flynn also managed to trace some of the relatives of the original team, including Mr Peter Trudge, the son of inside-right Elizabeth Edwards. The story is brought to life in the podcast and includes the fact that some original photographs have been uncovered. The podcast also highlights the work of Bass Charity Vase President, David Mellor.

Mr. R. T. Bradshaw - Coach of Coalville Ladies FC

Mr. R. T. Bradshaw. Source: BNA, Leicester Chronicle Saturday 26 August 1922, Page 3

“Instructed Women and Girl Footballers”

1n 1922, Mr Bradshaw was appointed the chairman of the Leicestershire FA. He was described as ‘...the popular football official of Coalville.’ He was well-known in Leicestershire football circles in his early days as a player before becoming a referee and football official. The Leicester Chronicle had this to say about his role in women’s football: “In 1918 the munition works at Coalville started a girls’ football team, and Mr. Bradshaw’s services were sought as instructor and referee. Under his tuition the girls won every match, and captured the “Bass” Charity Vase, which was competed for by munition girls all over the Midlands.”

World War One - Role of Women

Original French World War One Postcard - Land Girl, Conductor (‘Clippie’), Nurse, Munitionette, Postie. Source: Lizzy Ashcroft Collection

World War One - The Role of Women Footballers

The roles featured in the magnificent original French Postcard (above) have all been celebrated over the last century, but the role of women in sport has been overlooked until now. I estimated two years ago that there were over 250 teams that played over 1,000 games to raise money for the allied effort during the Great War (if we include the 1918-1919 season). The old adage that the more you look, the more you find holds true in this case and I think that these numbers will eventually be recognised as being much higher. On 11th November 2023, I had the great honour of laying a wreath at the Cenotaph in London on behalf of the women footballers of World War One. The ceremony was organised by the the Western Front Association.

The Coalville Munition girls and their opposition were part of that memory.

Biography

Steve Bolton was awarded a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics from University College London) and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the University of Nottingham. Steve’s passion is researching and writing about the history of women’s football. I have had several articles published and he is currently working on his first book: “Granny Played Football”. Granny Lizzy Ashcroft was one of the most influential and important pre-WW2 women’s footballers. She made her debut at the age of 16 for St Helens Ladies at St Andrews in April 1921 in front of a crowd of 30,000. After the English FA ban she joined the Dick Kerr Ladies in 1923 where she played until her retirement in 1935. She was Vice-Captain under Lily Parr from 1932-1934 and in 1935 took over the captaincy from her great mate Lily and led the DKL only their second ever continental tour. Steve is custodian of the Lizzy Ashcroft Collection which is one of the foremost collections of pre-World War Two women’s football memorabilia in private hands.

Steve’s Twitter handle is: @DagenhamInvince and he can be contacted by email at: lizzyashcroftfootballer@gmail.com