School football and netball teams might train during lunch hours. matches might occasionally be played during the week after school, but any weekend fixtures were always played on a Saturday. Playing on a Sunday was out of the question. 1950s Sunday was the most boring day of everybody’s week. (See my post about this!)
Football was a game played exclusively by boys (notice the random belongings placed as goal posts). Girls might be allowed to watch but they certainly didn’t take part. Even if a boy belonged to his school’s football team, there was little chance of being provided with any kind of kit. More often than not the only way anyone could tell the teams apart was by the colored bands that they all wore looped across one shoulder. Football boots Were brown,
needed hours of cleaningand restoring with dubbin
and came in sizes rather than colours or styles.
If girls didn’t play football, then boys most certainly did not play netball. The girls’ teams had exactly the same limitations with their kit, and their footwear was Elasticated black plimpsoles,
Both football and netball were played with stitched leather balls and despite careful applications of dubbin their surface was scuffed over time. In wet weather they absorbed water and became even heavier. This had disastrous consequences for young footballers who were encouraged to head footballs repeatedly. Worryingly High numbers of retired football players are now showing signs of cognitive damage. It is hoped that the use of newer, lighter footballs may mitigate this problem. There are hopeful changes in sport as a whole.
All young people are encouraged to play whichever sport Interests them, although netball is now referred to In schools as high five. Women’s football is now played at international level, although there is still some way to go In terms of pay and appropriate footwear. (Apparently there are important distinctions between the structure of women’s and men’s feet which are not acknowledged by football boot manufacturers who just provide the same shoes in smaller sizes and different colors.)
But at a local level the biggest change of all has been the development of Sunday League football. It offers the chance for boys and girls to play together in mixed teams, training during the week and with matches on Sundays. It means their families can also be involved. Over the summer months There’s the chance to play in six a side tournaments; a series of quick fire games surrounded by what looks like a small funfair with fast food and bouncy castles.
With players in their bright, lightweight kits and multicoloured boots, things have come a long way from the knee length baggy white shorts of the ‘girls not allowed’ days.