19.7.13

Feminine Football 1896


Published in Glasgow, The Baillie was a magazine that featured short stories, sketches and cartoons.
The mocking tone of the cartoon reproduced above is in keeping with the contemporary view of women's football as other examples from the Scottish press of the era show:
 football is not a game for women; and the spectacle of a score of girls careering about a field in knickerbockers is not to be defended on any ground of public utility.
 Glasgow News 1881
(women’s football is) ...the most degrading spectacle we have ever witnessed in connection with football, and we never want to see it faintly repeated.
Scottish Sport 1892
I'm assuming that the cartoon depicts a match from the 1896 Scottish tour of the British Ladies Football Club, which, incidentally, was marked by a great deal of  spectator violence.
The tour was a repeat of the previous year's commercial success which had prompted the Scottish Referee to write scathingly of  the ‘New Woman’, who goes in search of international caps and gate money that  belongs to men.

British Ladies Football Club 1896