Rome Wasn't Built in a Day, Chapter Six; Complaints have been made

Football in England between the two world wars is the subject of this week's chapter of Rome Wasn't Built in a Day.

6. Complaints have been made

Issues of governance regularities notwithstanding, football came back with a bang in 1919. Crowds for the first season smashed previous records, with attendances significantly up on the pre-war years. The Football League’s response was to expand the top two divisions to 22 clubs each, and the following year came a bigger change still.

In 1921, the League finally completed its network of clubs across the entire length and breadth of the country with the introduction of a Third Division made up mostly of the leading professional clubs of the Southern League. Then, to counter what was now perceived as a southern bias in the make-up of the League, a Third Division North was added. In the space of just a few weeks, the Football League’s membership had doubled to 88 clubs.

But some of the manifestations of these changing times were strangled before they even really got the chance to gain much momentum. Dick, Kerr Ladies FC were formed in 1917 as a women’s works team for the Dick, Kerr & Co locomotive and tram manufacturers in Preston. A large number of women had entered the workforce in 1914, but while the women now employed in the Dick, Kerr & Co works were at first frowned upon by the company management for wanting to play football, it was later considered beneficial to both their physical and mental wellbeing that they be allowed to continue.