Welcome to the biggest celebration ever experienced by women’s football, proclaims an energetic Mexican commentator.
The year is 1971 and a crowd of 110,000 people are gathered inside the Azteca Stadium to watch a sport described by one French observer as “a curiosity, both erotic and comical.”
For more than 50 years, images of this tournament have been hidden. Copa 71, a documentary produced by Serena and Venus Williams, sheds light on women who have been rejected by history.
From the raucous crowds, the extensive television coverage and a semi-final that ended in a full-blown brawl, it’s a story that has to be seen to be believed.
The Football Association’s 50-year ban on women playing football had just been lifted when Harry Batt, a bus driver who fought in the Spanish civil war, assembled a team of female players, the youngest of whom He was 13 years old, to represent his country.
The England team, with hats and some blows, photographed upon their return from Mexico for the 71st Cup, a tournament that is now the subject of a documentary.
Members of the 1971 England women’s football team at the premiere, including Jill Stockley, Val Cheshire, Janice Barton, Yvonne Farr, Marlene Collins, Paula Raynor, Trudy McCaffrey, Louise Cross and 1971 director Harry Batt’s son Kieth Batt poses with producer Victoria. Gregory, Director Rachel Ramsay and Director James Erskine
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Batt is described as a man who didn’t follow the rules. He had founded Chiltern Valley Ladies two years earlier and saw the sporting potential of women’s football. Others simply saw the opportunity to “look at their legs,” as one French player put it.
In 2004, Sepp Blatter, the then president of FIFA, suggested that women should wear smaller shorts to increase the popularity of the game.
Twenty years later, women’s football is very far from those stereotypes. Players are seen as strong role models as well as financial assets.
In the last three months, the transfer record for a female footballer has been broken twice, now standing at €735,000 (£685,000) for Racheal Kundananji’s move from Madrid CFF to Bay FC.
National teams and clubs are selling out major stadiums, while brands and broadcasters want in on the action.
In 1971, the men running the governing bodies saw women’s football as a joke. But for three weeks in August and September, sport took center stage as Mexican television company Televisa seized an unlikely business opportunity.
The 1970 World Cup, won by Pelé’s Brazil, had been held a year earlier and was the first televised in color. Televisa wanted to maintain the commercial momentum.
Italy had organized an impromptu Women’s World Cup in 1970, but Mexico thought it could produce a bigger, better version.
FIFA strongly opposed the idea and threatened the Mexican Football Federation with fines and bans if it allowed matches to be played on grounds it controlled.
Copa 71 was played before huge crowds, especially at the Azteca
Six nations participated, and Denmark won the tournament when it defeated host Mexico.
What FIFA did not anticipate was that Televisa could do whatever it wanted in the stadiums it owned – Azteca and Jalisco – the largest venues in the country. The task, or so it seemed, was to fill them.
As the extraordinary images show, fans came in droves.
“The tournament organizers had no doubt that they could attract people to the stadiums and that it would be a great commercial and sporting success,” Rachel Ramsay, co-director of Copa 71, told Mail Sport.
‘They used the same infrastructure they had for the men’s World Cup. They launched all the same means and resources in this women’s tournament.
“That’s what I find most extraordinary.”
Unable to officially call themselves England, the first ‘Lionesses’ were known as the ‘British Independence’ team. When they arrived, they were greeted by thousands of fans at the airport.
“When we got off the plane, everything was crazy: the fans, the police escorts, the television,” Chris Lockwood, who was 15 at the time, tells Mail Sport.
Unfortunately, as the film shows, many in the football world considered women’s football to be a “joke.”
The tournament generated a stir in Mexico, with full stadiums and television coverage.
‘We thought that, if we were lucky, we would play in a small stadium with only a few people watching. We had no idea what awaited us.’
England were eliminated in the group stage, losing to Mexico and Argentina, as the young players struggled with the humidity.
“None of us had ever been on a plane before; we didn’t even know what the altitude was!” says Lockwood.
‘We played in the parks, we were used to shouting at each other. When we arrived at the Azteca to the roar of the crowd, we didn’t have that communication to fall back on.”
Women had been banned from football in 1921 by the FA and other federations because the game was considered “unsuitable for women”.
There is a certain irony when you look at what happened in the semifinal between Mexico and Italy. Chaos occurred when the Italians, who lost 2-1, had two goals disallowed by the referee.
Punches were thrown and police separated players from both teams. The match had to end 10 minutes early to avoid further violence.
These lost Lionesses proved to be pioneers for the England team that won Euro 2022
Denmark won the final, with captain Inger Pedersen lifted into the air by her teammates, an image strikingly similar to that of Bobby Moore holding the Jules Rimet in 1966.
For three weeks these players lived their dreams, but the euphoria did not last. Each team returned home with a “feeling of nothingness,” the tournament erased from their consciousness.
England players were suspended again by the FA, those under 16 for three months and those over 16 for six months. Batt was given a lifetime ban and he never managed again.
“We never saw each other again as a group for 47 years,” Lockwood says. ‘When we got back together and talked, we all had the same thing and none of us had mentioned it to anyone.
“I think it’s because we felt ashamed and that we had done something wrong.”
Nine members of that England team watched alongside more than 87,000 others as the Lionesses made history by winning Euro 2022 at Wembley. That crowd was 22,808 fewer than the doors of the Azteca.
The popularity of women’s football has soared, helped by the success of the England team.
How did it take 51 years to even come close to what was achieved in 1971? The answer seems to be fear. That tournament demonstrated what women’s football could have been: popular and economically viable. That was a threat to the men in power.
Only recently has the Danish FA recognized the achievements of its World Cup champions, while the ‘Lost Lionesses’ have never been recognized by the FA. Surely it is time for that to change.
Perhaps Italian Elena Schiavo best describes the lasting memory of 1971: “A fairy tale, for better or worse.”
Copa 71 is in theaters starting March 8
