A Place at the Table
Match #6 Southampton vs Stewarton Thistle
Year: 1970/71
Location: Crystal Palace National Sports Centre
Description: The 1970-71 Women’s Football Association Cup was the first edition of the Women’s FA Cup, the national women’s football knockout competition in England, which at the time was open to clubs from the rest of the United Kingdom. Seventy-one teams entered the Cup, which was sponsored by sports equipment company Mitre and thus named the Mitre Challenge Trophy. The inaugural Cup-winners were Southampton Women’s F.C.
Women's Football:
- 1970: The first attempt at a Women’s World Cup was staged in Italy. Not sanctioned by FIFA, crowds were in the 10,000s for some matches with Denmark winning the initial competition.
- 1971: The FA repealed the ban in 1971, after also coming under pressure from UEFA. However, even after the FA’s policy was revoked, women’s football was left by the wayside, with the FA only stepping in to provide funding for the sport in 1993.
Women's Rights:
- 1970: The first British conference of the Women's Liberation Movement in Oxford resolved to press for employment legislation.
- 1970s: The first International Women’s Year, the first UN Decade for Women and the first world conference on women in Mexico escalates global discourse on women’s rights.
- 1970: The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer and The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir published.
- 1972: Cosmopolitan magazine launched in Britain.
- 1973: Carmen Calil forms the first feminist publishing house, Virago.
- 1975: The Equal Pay Act and Sex Discrimination Act come into effect and equal opportunities commission established.