Discover MORE (LINKS)
Images, interviews and articles
This excellent film (3 min 55 sec) about Bella Reay was produced by the BBC in 2014. The reporter is Gerry Jackson, with research by Jo Lonsdale.
​
Bella's granddaughter, Yvonne Crawford, recalls how crowds of 10,000 would watch the ladies - some as young as 17 - play.
Home Front
The Forgotten First International Women's Football Match.
(Image: Patrick Brennan)
Patrick Brennan
Extensive collection of research into the early history of women's football.
(Image: P. Brennan)
Sport
Women who kept football alive during WWI (2020).
(Image: Imperial War Museum, UK)
Sport: Football
How the FA banned women's football in 1921 and tried to justify it (2022).
Berkshire Live
Berkshire History
The story behind England's women footballers The Munitionettes (2022).
​
History
The World War I female footballer from Blyth who was the Alan Shearer of her day (2023).
Sport: Football
Wor Bella: The story of Blyth Spartans Ladies' free-scoring centre-forward (2021).
Women's football
Centenary of historic North East women's football match takes places this month (2018).
News
When women were banned from playing football on men's grounds (2021).
(Image: Y. Crawford)
Nostalgia
Fighting in the factory and on the football field (2015).
(Image: Darlington Centre for Local Studies)
Theatre
Writer seeks information on war-time women's football match played in Alnwick (2021).
Heritage
Magical footage shows South Tyneside and Hartlepool female footballers... (2021).
​
Teesside News
History is repeated as women's football derby re-match is held exactly 100 years on (2018).
​
Directed by Esther Johnson
An award-winning film commissioned by Sunderland Culture and 14-18 NOW.
Female footballers
Biographies of female footballers by John simkin (1997, updated 2020).