Until recent years the very existence of the Munition Girls football teams of World War 1 was a well-kept secret. Thanks to two excellent books by Gail Newsham and Barbara Jacobs, the exploits of the Dick, Kerr Ladies of Preston have become known to a wider audience. But although the achievements of the Dick, Kerr team should not be underestimated, they were not the first in the field, and theirs was not the full story. The present work is an attempt to redress the balance, and to tell the story of the Munition Girl Footballers of North-East England during those dark and far-off days.
It is a story which should have been commenced several years ago, when many of the ladies who feature in it were still alive. In common with most of their generation, they said little about their wartime exploits, and although their descendants knew that Mum had played football as a girl, they were told very little else. The tale has therefore been put together largely from contemporary newspaper reports. It reveals a world of contrasts; the youthful enthusiasm of the young women footballers, who stepped beyond the bounds of social conventions to raise money for charity, set against the awful reality of the most disastrous human conflict in history.
Paperback, 118 pages, 14 illustrations
ISBN 978 0 9555063 0 7