The “Manageress”:
The life and times of Clarice Vizard (nee, Singleton)
Part 2
Mrs Vizard’s XI

To read Part 1- click HERE 

 

Mrs Vizard’s XI

FIRST MATCH IN BOLTON.

The Secretary of the Bolton Ladies Amateur Football Club, Mrs Vizard, claims to have arranged the first ladies’ football match played in England. It took place at Bolton on April 14th, 1917, between the Smithills Hockey Club and Tonge Moor. The Bolton Ladies also claim the proud distinction of being one of the few teams that have beaten Dick Kerr’s, and twice this season they have run the Preston team to a goal.

Bolton Evening News, 10 October 1921

From 1917 to 1921, Clarice became part of the short-lived boom in women’s football. She may have been incorrect in her claim of organizing the first game in England, but she was on firmer ground in claiming a first victory over Dick, Kerr Ladies FC, the leading women’s side of the 1920s and 1930s. Her role in organizing that first wartime game in Bolton, and the subsequent activities of the Bolton Ladies, give Clarice good claim to be an important figure in the early history of female officials and managers in English football.

The backdrop to Clarice’s rise as a manager was social change on the Home Front of the First World War. The demands of total war brought increasing numbers of women into the civilian workforce, particularly in munitions work. Some of these workers enjoyed playing football, both recreationally, and as a means of raising money for wartime charities. While many teams disbanded after female workers were demobilized, new ones were formed as women’s football enjoyed a resurgence in the immediate post-war years, with teams continuing to raise money for charity. Over 240 different teams have been recorded in England during the First World War and around 150 in the immediate post-war years.[1]

Clarice holds a particular significance as seemingly one of the few female team managers in England during this period, and possibly, the most active. Between April 1917 and September 1921, sides described either as Bolton/Bolton Ladies/Mrs Vizard’s XI/ and a Pick of Lancashire XI selected by her, played, or were scheduled to play, a total of 23 games. Reported crowd sizes range from the hundreds to 27,218, and these games raised several thousand pounds for war and peacetime charities.

The limitations of sources may well obscure many other pioneering female managers, but it does seem that it was mostly men who occupied managerial roles. The Portsmouth Ladies (1916-1918) were seemingly rare in having several named female officials, while the Barrow YMCA side was run by a Miss N. Rawlinson. As we shall see, Clarice was perhaps unique in England in the prominence afforded to her name and role, although Diana Scott has a comparable place in Northern Ireland’s football history[2]

 

“Miss Singleton (the organizer) kicked off.”

How did Clarice become involved and why did she seem to focus on being an organizer and manager? As with many women’s teams, one motivation for the players was assisting wartime charities. As we saw in Part One, she had already volunteered her time towards the war effort through musical evenings for the troops, so organizing charitable games can be seen as extension of her voluntary efforts in her local community. These also extended to Clarice and her teammates organizing charity cricket matches in the summer of 1918.[3] Like many other women, she had direct connections in the form of family in the armed forces. As well as Edward, her elder brother, Walter Stewart Singleton, was serving with the Royal Engineers.[4] Another important link seems to have been her interest in playing hockey. When she married in 1918, she was described as a prominent, ‘hockey player and organizer of local ladies’ football teams for charity.’[5] The role of hockey is important in the emergence of women’s football in Bolton, as it provided the teams who played in the first wartime games there in April 1917.

Before examining them in more detail, it is helpful to place them within the wider spread of the wartime game. While a small number of games were held in 1915 and 1916 in Atherton, Preston, and Longeaton, it appears that England’s first notable playing scene appeared in Portsmouth across the second half of 1916. This may have in turn stimulated games in Sheffield, Derby, Birmingham, Chesterfield, and Ulverston during Christmas of 1916 and New Year’s Day of 1917. In turn, further teams appeared in Southampton, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands, Lincoln, Nottingham, and the North-East. Its spread in the North-West tends to be recorded from the summer of 1916 onwards, making the Bolton game one of the earlier recorded games for charity. Technically, there were two, with a ‘dress rehearsal’ held before a public game at Burnden Park on the 13 April 1917.

This game attracted substantial coverage in several local papers, with various reports in the Bolton Journal & Guardian, Bolton Evening News, and the Farnsworth Chronicle. The former provided the shortest report on the 20 April 1917 in its ‘Field of Sports Section.’

 

Ladies Football

Burnden Park was invaded by the women footballers, 22 hockey girls turning out to a game of kick-ball. Whilst they did not give a very elevating game in a playing sense, they raised £36 for charities. The teams were Smithills and Tonge Moor Congregational Hockey Clubs, and as there were no goals the ladies showed that it was much easier to stop the other side that it was to build up interesting attacks.[6]

The Bolton Evening News provided slightly more coverage with both a preview and a report. Its preview noted that Lady Flitcroft was due to kick-off the game ‘and that there has already been a dress rehearsal, when the teams displayed quite an interesting familiarity with the game.’ This article is particularly important as it lists the intended players, which did not include Clarice. At least five players from Smithill’s played in later Bolton Ladies games (D. Fernihough, M. Gibbons, E. Nicholson, H. Partingdon, P. Rawsthorne, and possibly one of A or H. Barton). The match report was not too long but did mention that Tonge Moor had missed a penalty. It also felt that ‘while admiring the spirit of the players, and their desire to assist charity, it must be said that their knowledge of the game and their ability to play it were limited, and to regular followers of football the game fell very flat.’[7]

An altogether longer and different perspective was offered by the Farnsworth Chronicle. The report of an anonymous reporter is worth reproducing in full, as it offers a partial view of how the crowd responded to the game, and of how reporters attempted to understand and frame the advance of women onto the football field.

 

Fair Rivals

The Lighter Side of Ladies’ Football

“I didn’t expect to see football; all the same I enjoyed it,” was an after- match comment that probably spoke the composite impressions of most of the men who, from curiosity or gallantry, helped to make the gate” respectably numerous for the Bolton lady footballers at Burnden.

Since that first inauspicious women’s football game at Astley Meadow[8] many years ago women have marched a long way on the road of unconventionality with innovations that would have shocked the heroines of the Bronte and Austin type, and it is not surprising that they have had the temerity to aim even at achievement in the most masculine of all sports.

The feminine footballers, who played in Bolton on that former occasion, were mobbed because they dared before their day, but so modified is the critical spirit of these times even in its attitude towards abnormalities that their sisters at Burnden were good humouredly watched and be- times applauded.

To dispute women’s claim to a place in athletics would be to take up an absurdly untenable position, for there are few sports they have not essayed with more or less success, and harking back even to classic times is there not the story of Atalanta, “swiftest of all mortals,” who vowed to marry only that man who could outstrip-her in a racę! But between the Olympian stadium and Burnden Park there is a far cry in time and conditions, and it is doubtful (taking last Saturday as a criterion) if even two teams of Atalantas would play up to true Soccer form. The ladies of Smithills and Tonge failed even to crown their efforts with one immortal goal.

 

The Wrong Setting.

By previous writers in these columns the game itself has been analysed with very tempered criticism, and the one point that remains to claim any further attention is the question as to whether on Saturday’s experience football is or will be a women’s game. The first impression as the two teams of athletic young women emerged into the open was one of doubt as to whether a big football ground is the most fitting scene of play for the erst-while “gentle sex.” Those immaculately laundried jerseys and skirts and the lithe willowy “forms divine” that wore them were surely more adapted to grace at sun-lit lawn than contact with the sullying mud of a sodden ground where muddied oafs were wont to flounder and hustle in the fiercest of scrimmages compared with which hockey is a gentle art. To do the “lasses” credit they faced the mud – very literally too on many an occasion – with as much sang-froid as they took the chaffing of the crowd. But conceding to them this display of grit one instinctively felt that football here was not their proper metier. There were no feminine Stokes’ or Vizards’ “discovered.”

On this latter point the attitude of the crowd was convincing. The crowd itself is always an interesting, not always edifying psychological study, but this was not the usual “mob” that tears a passion to tatters, rends the air in its vehemence and its expletive explosions, and generally like the heathen “rages furiously together” when the game goes awry and its “pets” are off form and throw away goals that are a gift.

 

The Breathless Goal

If one missed the stridulous Doric disapproving burr there was also absent the Gothic exultant roar which occurs when the game goes well.

These are the thrills that are the hallmarks of popular appreciation of the genuine sport, and it was in their utter inability to rise or fall to these heights or depths of strenuous play where the ladies showed their futility in the spectacular sense. Pope or some one else has said:

His is the true immensity of soul,

Whose flying feet achieves the breathless goal!

There were no goals “breathless” or otherwise, and as the “stand” only rarely found occasion for cheering its general demeanour was that of an amused interest with laughter at the infractions of rules and at the feminine touches. None enjoyed the game more than the soldiers, who were in fair number, and they certainly did not take it seriously. They had not unkindly sarcastic comments for the players addressed in endearing terms, and a responsive glance would evoke the retort “dinna look here, look at the bawl!” “Are ye ganging to sleep?” “Lassie, get a move on”; “Look where you’re going, “Never mind your hairpins,” were specimens of the facetious comments tossed to the girls as they negotiated the hall with varying degrees of energy on the heavy turf. A little melee would bring a fall, and then a braw Scot would bellow in the trench manner “stretcher bearers, at the double.”

This was the genial spirit in which the game was watched, and at the close nobody, players nor spectators, was the worse for the novelty-which was after all its chief recommendation-and a charitable object was all the better to the tune of £36.

Whether these two teams of ladies could with more practice and a better under- standing of the rules have given a better game, something more approximating to the ninety-minutes of hot-footed sport, which the habitues of football matches pay for is problematical. It is, however, for the women themselves to decide whether or not football is an appropriate game for their sex.

Certainly, a great football arena is not the venue for it; to play it con amore under less demonstrative and exacting conditions for sheer love of exercise is, as Mr. Kipling, would say, “another matter.”[9]

In April 1917, women’s football was still very much a novelty in many areas of Britain, as it was only just beginning to spread on a wide scale. But this meant that early games were sometimes afforded high levels of media interest. In Bolton, this went as far as the match being filmed and then shown at local cinemas in the following weeks.[10] The GEM Picturedrome put them alongside ‘The Habit of Happiness’ (1916) which starred Douglas Fairbanks, one of the great early stars of Hollywood. As historian Stephen Bolton pointed out to me, while the film has sadly not survived, it is significant in that it is quite possibly one of the earliest known films made of a women’s football match.

 

After this game in April, there were no more recorded ones until Bolton played Manchester on the 31 December 1917. This is the first game in which Clarice was specifically mentioned by name as the organizer. The Bolton Evening News’ report provides an indication of how attitudes towards women’s football were already beginning to change.

 

Lady Footballers – Interesting Game for Bolton Charity

A crowd some hundreds strong gathered on Burnden Park on Saturday to watch ladies teams representative of Manchester and Bolton play a game of football for the benefit of the “Bolton Evening News” Prisoners of War Fund. To say that the quality of the football served and the serious nature of the play came as a surprise, is to state the matter lightly. Most people had gone to the match primarily to support a very deserving charity, but they were expecting humour, if not farce, of the broadest kind. There was humour in the game, but no more than is associated with any and every football match, but of farce there was not a scrap.

The women showed an intelligent grasp of the principles of the game; they ran a swiftly as men until the last quarter hour tackled fearlessly: dribbled and manoeuvred with skill and judgment; passed, and shot, and scored, too, in a way that could not but awake the greatest enthusiasm. Miss Gibbons had three goals to her credit and was to large extent responsible for Bolton’s victory of five goals to none. Miss Barton and Mise Haslam were the other scorers.

Bolton were too good in every department for their Manchester sisters, and their victory was a somewhat easy one. There was not an unclean incident in the game from start to finish, and only two slight accidents Miss Orr, of Manchester, having her arm injured, and Miss Higson being struck in the face with the ball. Otherwise the game was one of the cleanest and cleverest.

During the afternoon the Lostock Industrial School Band played selections of music. Lad Flitcroft, who was accompanied by the Mayor (Ald. Knowles Edge), Mr. R. Tootill M.P. and Miss Singleton (the organiser) kicked off, and Dr. Marsh was the referee.[11]

 

Patterns of Play

Following these early games in 1917, Clarice went onto organize further games each year until 1921. Table 1 below provides an outline of her and the teams’ activities. Rather than describing each game in turn, I will focus on exploring some key features from both the data and the reports.

 

Table 1: Bolton Ladies and other games associated with Mrs Vizard, 1917-1921

Date	Fixture	Location	Crowd	Charity/Gate
?, April 1917	Smithill’s v Tonge Moor	Burnden Park, Bolton	N/A	Rehearsal for following game
14/04/1917	Smithill’s 0 Tonge Moor 0	Burnden Park, Bolton	1,000	£36 gate
29/12/1917	Bolton Ladies 5 Manchester Ladies 0	Burnden Park, Bolton	Several hundred	Bolton POW Fund
29/03/1918	Dick, Kerr 3 Mrs Vizard’s XI 2 (Bolton)	Deepdale, Preston	6,000 to 7,000	£150 to £200 for War Benevolent Fund
27/04/1918	Bolton Ladies 2 Dick, Kerr 0	Burnden Park, Bolton	2,000
21/09/1918	Bolton Ladies 5 Leigh 0	Burnden Park, Bolton	?	Part of Charity Carnival
25/12/1918	Dick, Kerr 2 Bolton Ladies 2	Deepdale, Preston	8,000
11/01/1919	Dick, Kerr 5 Bolton Athletic Ladies 1	Deepdale, Preston	?
29/03/1919	Dick, Kerr 2 Bolton Ladies 0	Yarrow Bridge, Chorley	500
10/05/1919	Dick, Kerr v Bolton Ladies (Scheduled)	Farington Villa Ground, Leyland	?	Leyland Branch of NADSS
15/05/1920	Dick, Kerr 6 Bolton Ladies 2	Blackpool	6,000 to 14,000
Before 07/04/1921	Bolton Ladies 2 Chorley?		?
Before 25/05/1921	Bolton Ladies v Fleetwood	Bolton	?
20/04/1921	Dick, Kerr 8 Bolton Ladies 0	Burnden Park, Bolton	27,218 to 33,000	£2000 to £1500 for Bolton Ex-Servicemen
04/05/1921	Bolton 3 Manchester 0	Recreation Ground, Burton Road, Carlton, Nottingham	5,000 to 8,000
29/05/1921	Dick, Kerr 7 Pick of Lancashire XI 1	Deepdale, Preston	6,000
31/05/1921	Fleetwood 2 Bolton 0	Turf Moor, Burnley	4,000	£42 for Mayor of Burnley’s Unemployment Fund
23/06/1921	Fleetwood (Scheduled)	Bedford	?
13/08/1921	Bolton Ladies 3 Fleetwood 0	Hindley	?	DDSSA
20/08/1921	Fleetwood (Scheduled)	King Edward’s School, St. Annes	?
03/09/1921	Rochdale Ladies	Eccles	?	Ashton Infirmary
13/09/1921	Dick, Kerr 3 Bolton 2	Bury	3,000
20/09/1921	Dick, Kerr 2 Bolton Ladies 1	Spotland’s, Rochdale	?	Rochdale Branch of the British Legion

 

Sources

Beeston Gazette, 7 May 1921, Bedfordshire Times, 27 May 1921, Burnley Express, 1 June 1921, Burnley News, 1 June 1921, Bolton Evening News, 13, 14 April, 29, 31 December 1917, 23 September 1918, 21 April, 15 August 1921, Bolton Journal and Guardian, 20 April 1917, Fleetwood Chronicle, 3 June 1921, Fylde News, 19 May 1919, Lancashire Evening Post, 30 March, 24 December 1918, 10 and 24 January, 28, 31 March, 5, 26, 28, 30 May, 19, 21 August 1921, Manchester Evening News, 29 December 1917, Nottingham Evening Post, 5 May 1921, Preston Herald, 30 March and 4 May 1918, Sportsman 29 April 1918, Rochdale Times 3, 14, 21 September 1921, Yorkshire Post, 17 May 1919

https://www.donmouth.co.uk/womens_football/dick_kerr.html (accessed 24.12.2024)

Helge Faller, The Female Pioneers: A Statistical Record of Women’s Football in Great Britain and Ireland from 1881 to 1953 (2022)

Gail J. Newsham, In a League of Their Own!: The Dick Kerr Ladies 1917-1965 (2018)

 

Geographically, they played or were scheduled to play almost exclusively within Lancashire against Lancashire based sides. They played eight games in Bolton, four in Preston, and then once (or were scheduled to) in each of Blackpool, Burnley, Bury, Chorley, Eccles, Hindley, Leyland, Lytham St. Anne’s, and Rochdale. The furthest they travelled was to Carlton in Nottingham, while there is a report of a game intended for what seems Bedford, although no record of the game being played has been found. The location of one intended game with Fleetwood is still unknown.

How frequently did Clarice organize games? Table 2 uses the FA’s contemporary definition of the season (September to April) to assign games to contemporary seasons.

Table 2: Timing of games played/scheduled by season/off-season

This shows a steady number of games across 1917/18 to 1919/20, followed by possible rise in the summer of 1920 (two games may not have been held) and a strong start to the 1920/21 season before the FA’s ban of December 1921. They played regularly, rather than intensively. By way of comparison, the Fleetwood Ladies played or were scheduled to play around 30 games across 1920 and 1921, compared to Bolton’s 10 in the same period.

Their most regular opponents were DK Ladies, who they played 10 times, with another against the Lancashire XI selected by Clarice. Five games were organized with Fleetwood, two against Manchester (although they may well not have been the same side), and once against Chorley, Rochdale, and Leigh.

Some of Bolton’s opponents:
Source National Football Museum

The bulk of Bolton’s games with DK Ladies were played at the beginning of their playing career, amounting to seven of the nine fixtures played between December 1917 and May 1920, with one further game in 1921 and two in 1923. Looking at these games, there are several highlights to pick out. One is Bolton’s 2-0 victory over DK Ladies at Burnden Park on the 27 April 1918. This was the DK Ladies first recorded defeat and something of a rarity as the team became the powerhouse of English women’s football. Sadly, press reports of the game are rather limited. The Preston Herald merely noted that they had lost, which smacks of sour grapes given that it provided a more detailed report for DK Ladies 3-2 win at Deepdale the previous month.[12] The Sportsman provided a bare outline, noting that 2,000 spectators had seen ‘Miss Haslam’ score both goals.

Florrie Haslam went onto join DK Ladies and went with them to France (1920) and the USA (1922).[13] She was an early example of how Alfred Frankland, the DK Ladies manager, recruited talented players from opposing sides to play for DK Ladies. When DK Ladies played Newcastle United Ladies at Deepdale on the 8 March 1919, they were strengthened by three players from Bolton: P. Rawsthorne, S. Hulme and H. Partington.[14] When they played a return match at St. James’ Park, Florrie Haslam played for DK Ladies.

Looking at the results between the two clubs, it’s possible to see a shift in the balance between them, as DK Ladies turned into the preeminent English side. The three games in 1918 saw a win for each side and one draw. But known results through 1919, 1920, and early 1921 saw four wins for DK Ladies, culminating in an 8-0 win at Burnden Park.[15] However, the gap narrowed for Clarice in her final two games against DK Ladies, with close defeats for Bolton Ladies (3-2 and 2-1), both in September 1921. While still losses, the results were a lot closer than many teams enjoyed against DK Ladies in 1921, who played 67 games, won them all, scored 448 goals and conceded only 22.[16] Many opposition teams failed to score at all and the two goals that Bolton scored were one of only three occasions when the opposition scored two or more goals. It’s somewhat speculative, but Clarice seems to have organized one of the few English sides, alongside St. Helen’s and Stoke, who could give DK Ladies a decent run for their money.

Outside of results, the crowd for Bolton Ladies v DK Ladies on Wednesday 20 April 1921 was another highlight. Although the 8-0 defeat was one to forget for Clarice, one imagines that she remembered the crowd of 27,218 for many years.[17] This seems to have been the largest that any of Clarice’s sides played in front of and compares very well with the Bolton’s men’s side of that season, who attracted an average of 34,400 per game and a season high of 54,809 for the visit of Burnley on the 5 March 1921 in the Football League.[18] It is an example of how an appetite existed for both men’s and women’s football in the immediate post-war period.

After the opening games in 1917, this was the game that attracted the most attention in the Bolton Evening News. It published extensive pre-match coverage, adverts for the game, its longest match report for a women’s game, and topical commentary. Compared to earlier coverage which had emphasized the novelty of women’s football, the papers headline instead focused on the huge contribution they had made to charity by attracting a massive crowd.

 

£2,000 RAISED BY LADIES FOOTBALL

Nearly 30,000 spectators assembled at Burnden Park on Wednesday night to see the football match between Bolton ladies’ team, got together by Mrs. Vizard, and the Dick Kerr’s team, which, formed four years ago, has been instrumental in raising over £35,000 for charitable objects. The proceeds on this occasion were in aid of the Bolton and District Ex-Servicemen’s fund, and as 27,218 people paid £1,633 8s. 9d. for admission and a large number of tickets had been sold, it is expected: that a sum of £2,000 will be raised. I do not remember a game on the Wanderers ground that has provoked so much hearty laughter, and yet, was very far removed from being farcical, for many of the girls showed a very commendable conception of the game. But most of the skill was on the side of the girls who have played together pretty regularly for the past four years, and they displayed not only an intimate understanding of each other’s play, but a measure of individual skill and a knowledge of positional strategy which comes only with constant practice. That was precisely where the Bolton girls were lacking. They often carried the ball into the visitors’ half by sheer determination and hard work, but none of their for- wards could manoeuvre for shooting positions or round off their attacks, and on not more than two or three occasions was the Dick Kerr’s goal assailed. With the wind at their backs, the Bolton girls, who received plenty of encouragement from the crowd. set a merry pace, but the first real attack engineered by the visitors brought a goal in seven minutes, Miss Parr finishing with an oblique shot that carried so much pace that, though Miss Knox got her hands to the ball, it twisted behind her into the net. The lively ball on a dry ground often deceived the players, but the visitors certainly dis- played superior control, and swinging the ball about they kept the Bolton defence at full stretch, Misses A. Milla and F. Redford giving Dick Kerr’s a half-time lead of 3-0.

 

Ruffled Tempers and a Breeze.

One of the Bolton backs and a Preston forward got at loggerheads, and we witnessed the undignified spectacle of a first-class Rugby tackle, but the referee, Mr. L. N. Fletcher, of Bury, and other players intervened. For some time spoiled tempers threatened to spoil the game, but happily better counsels prevailed. When a Bolton girl got a knock-out blow, Miss M. Gibbona, the Smithill’s hockey expert, who has acted as trainer to the Bolton girls, ran on the field to administer the healing balm. In the second half, Dick Kerr’s by well- ordered movements exerted relentless pressure, relieved by occasional individual raids by the local ladies which invariably broke down before they could develop, and aided by mistakes in goal, and some fine shooting on the part of Miss Redford, five more goals were recorded, four being credited to Dick Kerr’s centre forward and one to Miss Parr. A solo dash by Miss Cousill led to a scrimmage in the visitors’ goalmouth, and that was about the nearest escape they had. Quite the most effective Bolton player was Miss K. Winterburn, who at left half tackled with a skill and resolution that repeatedly won approbation and Miss P. Scott[19], a light-weight full-back, showed rare resource in clearing her charge; whilst Miss P. Rawsthorne was steady in defence in the first half, and later strengthened the weakest part of the team the forwards. Both teams were entertained to ten by the Mayor and Mayoress at the Town Hall before the match, and afterwards the Wanderers’ directors provided refreshments on the ground.

A ball, given by Mr. J. T. Howcroft, and autographed by the players, was sold by Auction, becoming the property of Councillor B. Warburton, one of the Wanderers’ directors, who paid five guineas for it.[20]

If “Olympian”’s reporting had struck a supportive tone, sadly some of the paper’s other coverage echoed that of the Farnsworth Chronicle in 1917. The following report appeared in the same issue.

 

A Mere Man’s View.

Wonder what Grandma would have thought about it all! But as I’m not quite Victorian, I believe I’d have forgiven the lady footballers at Burden their exhibition of Boy Scout knees if the game had been a little less one-sided.

I am told the Bolton girls have been taking regular lessons on the running track and hall practice for weeks, and yet they allowed the girls from Preston to put up eight. Enough to make them go home and have a good cry about it!

There were nearly 30,000 of us looking on. Many of us have been watching first class man football for years and we knew very well that a football spectacle the game would he unsatisfying. I wonder, then, what was the great palling power of this

Hande up all those who went to me football. Ugh!

Those who went to support the Disabled and Discharged Serviceman’s Fund? Yes, a few.

Now them, who considered the show in the light of a very modern revues. [A form a theatrical review] Come along be quite frank about it. My, what a lot of hands!

And now, those who want for the sheer novelty of the exhibition, something fresh in the way of entertainment with just an occasional warming up of sporting enthusiasm and much to amuse. That was the pulling power of ladies’ football on Wednesday, and that being so it doesn’t say a great deal for ladies’ football as a new branch of our national sports.

The girls in stripes played very scientifically, but it wasn’t the honest, high-spirited game that so many of us love. Woman isn’t built for that game and that’s why we felt on Wednesday it had been a spectacle, an hour of fun and laughter for the onlookers-and yet not the real English game. Just as well put a company of Sunday school dialogue producers in motley and expect them to thrill a crowd at the Theatre Royal.

Mind you, I admire the players’ pluck in facing 30,000 spectators, especially in kilts and “shorts” respectively. It was an achievement too, to raise all that money for the benefit of the lads who fought, and there is an admirable spirit underlying all the Dick Kerr’s girls have done for the noble cause of charity, but give me tennis and hockey for a womanly sport, and let us try to preserve real womanliness in our women.[21]

If Clarice was disappointed with the tone of this aspect of the reporting, she could at least console herself with the respect afforded to the teams being entertained to lunch at the Town Hall prior to the match and being invited to a dance afterwards.[22]

 

“Endeavouring to build up a team.”

What can we discern about Clarice’s work for the team? A list of possible tasks could include arranging fixtures with opposing managers, negotiating agreements with them and/or club officials and charity organizers, assembling and communicating with the players, organizing training sessions, picking the team, arranging transport to/from games, communicating with the press, police and local dignitaries, and any financial matters relating to some or all the above.

The closest we can get to some of the detail of this work comes in the Bolton Evening News’ preview of their game with DK Ladies in April 1921. The papers regular sportswriter, “Olympian,” provided several detailed updates in the build up to the game. In one he described how:

Mrs. E.T. Vizard, who has all arrangements in hand, is endeavouring to build up a team, which will at least give the visitors a fright. She is very keen on the eleven being purely local, and is open to receive offers to play from any girl with enthusiasm or ability – the latter sunk in favour of the former, if necessary. Mrs. Vizard is working on the dictum that keenness counts. Letters should be addressed 68, Hilden-St., Haulgh.

 

Another Silcock!

At the time of writing the Bolton side is nearly completed, though already the girls are practising two nights a week on Burnden Park, under expert guidance, but as there no such barriers as transfer fees and the likes to surmount, Mrs. Vizard does not anticipate encountering much difficulty in making up a formidable team. She has plenty of dash, but is, of course, desirous of blending this with some degree of skill, and for this reason, will give preference, to girls at present playing, or with some knowledge of hockey. Jack Silcock, the clever young Manchester United defender, who, as everyone knows, is about to receive his first International cap, has written to the Bolton Secretary this week, strongly recommending his sister Rachael, whom he believes has possibilities. People ask, “what’s in a name?” I leave it at that.[23]

The reference to Clarice aiming to select a ‘local’ side is interesting, as it contrasts somewhat with the approach of Alfred Frankland at DK Ladies. Frankland sought to attract good players from other parts of the country with jobs at the Dick, Kerr works, making them at once both local and not. “Olympian” provided a further update in the week before the game, describing how:

Mrs. E.T. Vizard has 20 playing members, all in training, from whom the Bolton eleven will be picked. All the girls are improving rapidly. Miss R. Silcock, sister of the Manchester United international, has shown very pleasing form (she scored both goals for Bolton Ladies against Chorley recently), and under the captaincy of Miss P. Rawsthorne, the Smithhill’s hockey player, the Bolton eleven is expected to do well. Miss Rawsthorne, singularly enough, is at present on tour with the Dick Kerr’s Ladies.

The above reports indicate how Clarice might have influenced her sides style of playing through player selection. The Burnley News ventured the view that, ‘perhaps owing to their training by Mrs. Vizard, wife of the well-known Bolton professional, they had more than a passing knowledge of the game, and were undoubtedly the better side, having fully three-quarters of the play, and scoring two goals.’[24] However, ”Olympian’s” reference to ‘expert guidance’ and a later reference to the team not having a female coach, suggests that a man, most likely a player or former-player, had a role in providing coaching at any practise sessions.

What else we might say about her work comes from small fragments of evidence. Arranging matches might involve travelling to meet opposing officials in person. The Lancashire Evening Posts’ sportswriter noted Clarice, along with ‘Mrs Smith, the wife of the well-known wicketkeeper’ attending DK Ladies 2-0 win over Barrow YMCA to arrange a fixture in 1918.[25] Edward also attended to support several games, acting as a linesman at least twice, something that other leading players also did at this time.[26]

So far, just one photograph of Clarice with her Bolton side has emerged. It was taken when they played Fleetwood Ladies at Burnley’s Turf Moor ground on the 31 May 1921. Although it’s hard to be certain, I believe Clarice is stood to our right, one of the two women dressed in non-football clothes. The Burnley News reported that the players were ‘nearly attired in white caps, white jersies and short blue skirts, which did not interfere with their play.’[27] From the photo we can see that they also had very neat badges with the initials of the team’s name.

Sadly, the newspaper did not provide a guide to players in the photo. However, we can likely identify the captain of the side, Rachel Silcock, as photographic convention demanded that the captain be at the centre of any photos, where she sits with the ball between her legs. Rachel was the sister of Robert Silcock, who played for Manchester United between 1916 and 1934, making 449 first team appearances, not including wartime games.[28] Rachel and Robert grew up in Aspull in Wigan. Baptised into the Methodist Church, in the 1911 census she worked as a cotton weaver. Her mother Mary Silcock (58) looked after a household that comprised her second husband, William Silcock (53), her sons from her first marriage, Thomas and William Pass (28 and 24), and three children from her second marriage, Robert (17), Rachel (15), and John (13). All the men worked in different capacities in the coal mining industry. Rachel was one of several female players at this time who had brothers who were professional footballers. Another was Minnie Seed, from another coal-mining family, whose brothers included Angus Seed (Reading FC) and Jimmy Seed (Tottenham Hotspur, Sheffield Wednesday, and England).

 

Clarice and the Law

Newspaper reports reveal glimpses of the more challenging side of being an early women’s football manager. On the 11 June 1921, the Derbyshire Times, produced a detailed report on the driver of the Bolton Ladies charabanc being charged with driving a charabanc to the danger of the public of Darley Dale on the 14 May 1921. The Matlock Police Court heard conflicting statements between Policemen and local witnesses, and the driver and members of the Bolton side. It seems that Clarice was one of them, although she gave her name as ‘Mrs. Singleton,’ perhaps a deliberate decision to use her maiden name to avoid undue attention at home. The Court dismissed one charge but upheld another and fined the driver £2.

Another side of Clarice’s life and her character was revealed several months later when she took legal action against the Secretary of the Manchester Ladies Club in September 1921. The Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail recorded the following report.

It offers a brief insight into the types of financial arrangements that might be made between sides before games and the risks they ran. Helge Faller lists the crowd for this game as being between 5,000 to 8,000, which does not sound like a ‘disastrous’ gate.[29] Quite what was going on is not clear, given that we lack reliable information about what prices the crowd were being charged and what sum was raised, which would allow for some measure of comparison with other games.

It is uncertain how fare the news of this legal action spread, but given its timing, it is possible that it reached FA officials and informed their growing unease about how the finances of women’s football charity matches were organized. These concerns, alongside sexist views about the suitability of football for women, led to the FA banning its clubs from hosting women’s games on the 3 December 1921.

Poignantly, only a few months earlier the Bolton Evening News had printed an article in its ‘Women’s News’ section talking up the future of women’s football. The writer felt that:

Whether the football girl will ever be taken seriously by the football man time alone can tell, but there is no doubt that she has come to stay. [30]

While some clubs continued to play on, most notably Dick, Kerr Ladies FC, the Bolton Ladies did not. For Clarice, this was the end of her time as the “manageress.”

 

To read Part 3 – Click HERE 

 

References/Notes

[1] For more about the scale and development of women’s football see, Alexander Jackson, Alexander Jackson, Football’s Great War: Association Football on the English Home Front (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2021), pp.197-210.

[2] See https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/the-pioneer-of-ladies-football-in-irelanda-brief-history-of-mrs-scottpart-on/

[3] Bolton Evening News, 14 August and 9 September 1918.

[4] British Army World War I Service Records, 1914-1920, accessed 27.12.2024. He joined, possibly under the Derby Scheme, on 10 December 1915. He had a wife and child and worked as a telephone engineer.

[5] Evening Dispatch, 2 January 1918.

[6] Bolton Journal & Guardian, 20 April 1917.

[7] Bolton Evening News, 17 April 1917.

[8] I am uncertain what game is being referred to here.

[9] Farnsworth Chronicle, 20 April 1917.

[10] See Bolton Evening News, 18 to 21 and 16 April 1917.

[11] Bolton Evening News, 31 December 1917.

[12] Preston Herald, 30 March and 4 May 1918.

[13] https://www.dickkerrladies.com/players-through-the-decades accessed 30.12.2024.

[14] Gail J. Newsham, In a League of Their Own! The Dick, Kerr Ladies 1917-1965 (Lightning Source: 2018), pp.44-45.

[15] The game at Chorley in 1919 did see Bolton play with only 10 players. Lancashire Evening Post, 31 March 1919.

[16] Ibid, pp.108-112.

[17] The Lancashire Evening Post (22 April 1921) gives a crowd of 32,000. However, it tended to overestimate attendances when compared with reports from more local newspapers. I have chosen to use the lower but more detailed figure provided by Patrick Brennan at https://www.donmouth.co.uk/womens_football/dick_kerr.html accessed 31.12.2024.

[18] Tony Brown, The Football League Match by Match, 1921/22 (Soccerdata, 2000)

[19] Miss P. Scott is most likely Polly Scott who also played for Chorley, Fleetwood Ladies and Plymouth Ladies. See https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/fleetwood-ladiespart-twoplayers-and-officials/

[20] Bolton Evening News, 21 April 1921.

[21] Bolton Evening News, 21 April 1921.

[22] Bolton Evening News, 19 April 1921.

[23] Bolton Evening News, 10 March 1921.

[24] Burnley News, 1 June 1921.

[25] Lancashire Evening Post, 16 March 1918.

[26] Lancashire Evening Post, 30 March 1918, Bolton Evening News, 21 April 1921.

[27] Burnley News, 1 June 1921.

[28] 1911 Census, http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamPlyrsBios/PlayersS/BioSilcockJ.html and  https://www.manutd.com/en/players-and-staff/detail/jack-silcock accessed 30.12.2024.

[29] Helge Faller, The Female Pioneers: A Statistical Record of Women’s Football in Great Britain and Ireland from 1881-1953 (2022), p.154.

[30] Bolton Evening News, 10 October 1921.