ONE hundred years ago today, one of the earliest floodlit matches recorded on film was played on a Thursday night at Deepdale, Preston.

Two years after the Armistice ended the Great War, over 10,000 paying spectators raised over £600 for unemployed servicemen — and they came to watch two teams of women play football.

Titled “Soccer by Searchlight,” British Pathe described the occasion as a “novel game played for ex-service unemployed fund won by Dick Kerrs Ladies’ (sic) Football Team.”

Experimental matches had been played under lights since 1878 and with the recently professionalised men’s clubs seeking to cover their increased wage bills, they were keen to utilise the only available slot in the five-and-a-half day working week to stage matches.

Games were still forbidden on Sundays so late-night midweek games seemed to be the way forward. However, the unreliability of the lighting technology at the time meant games were often abandoned or delayed so the Football League outlawed all floodlit matches when it was formed in 1888 to ensure all matches could be completed.

Originally set up for the traction industry in Preston, Dick, Kerr and Company Ltd metamorphosed into a munitions factory during the first world war. With men from the garrison town heading to the Western front, local women were employed to take their place in the factories.

In her seminal book A League Of Their Own! Gail Newsham explains how many women’s football teams were created around the country as a result of the government appointing women welfare supervisors to oversee “the moral and physical wellbeing of the girls” and encouraging the development of sporting activities.

Responding to a challenge from Grace Sibbert in the work canteen after a succession of defeats for the men’s work football team, the Dick, Kerr Ladies team was formed in 1917 to take them on. Two hundred women trialled to play for a team which swiftly gained a reputation as the best in the land, regularly playing in front of five-figure crowds.

In April 1920, they represented England in what many consider the first-ever women’s international match against France witnessed by 25,000 spectators at Deepdale, the first of four matches which preceded an acclaimed tour of France from which they returned undefeated and gained box-office notoriety.

The team was managed by Alfred Frankland, an office worker in the factory. In 1920, he was informed that the local charity for unemployed ex-servicemen was in great need of money to provide food hampers for former soldiers at Christmas.

Frankland decided to arrange a game to raise funds at Deepdale between Dick, Kerr Ladies and a team made up of the Rest of England. To maximise the attendance, it was decided to stage the match at night.

Following an application to the War Office, permission was granted by then secretary of state for war Winston Churchill for two anti-aircraft searchlights of 150,000 candle power, generation equipment and forty calcium carbide flares, to be used to floodlight the game.

On a clear, still Lancashire evening, conditions perfectly suited for a night match, the military searchlights were placed at either end of the ground creating beams of light above the stadium. The carbide flares were placed close to the touchline, around the pitch.

With the regulation brown leather footballs of the period difficult to spot in the dark, Bob Holmes, a left back in the Preston North End team that won the first Football League title in 1888-89, the so-called Invincibles, had the responsibility of throwing on whitewashed balls at regular intervals.

The Dick, Kerr Ladies ran out of the tunnel in their traditional black-and-white striped tops with matching striped hats, followed by the Rest of England team in dark halved shirts and dark hats. The players posed for the cameramen and many photographers. Due to an air-lock and the ongoing petrol shortages in post-war Britain, the searchlights went out twice, just before the game started and once during the first half, but the game went on regardless.

The glare of the artificial lights created long, eerie shadows of the photographers on the pitch. At one point the searchlight operator at the Fulwood end of the ground pointed his beam onto the Dick, Kerr forwards as they attacked the opposition goal, dazzling them to the point that they “temporarily lost all sense of position and direction.”

The press photographers and camera operators often fired their flashlights at inopportune moments just as a striker was preparing to shoot for goal. On one occasion, Jeannie Harris was so disorientated her close-range shot went so far over the crossbar it struck the top of the south stand.

Nevertheless, Harris, described as “the cleverest girl footballer playing,” still scored twice in the first period of a match consisting of two halves of 35 minutes. Florrie Redford and Minnie Lyons scored late in the second half of a 4-0 victory in which the Dick, Kerr goalkeeper Hastie did not have a single shot to save.

Despite a touch of ground frost, it was reported that “the game was contested at a capital pace throughout and few passes went awry.” The short Pathe film featured night shots of the packed terraces at Deepdale, with the predominantly male spectators enthusiastically waving their hats in appreciation under the floodlights.

At the end, a crowd of boys and young men surrounded the players and raced off with the match ball pursued by the searchlight and policeman.

After the match, local MP Colonel Stanley congratulated the teams before joining them and the match officials for supper at the Dick, Kerr works canteen. Frankland declared that all future activities of the team would be dedicated to the cause of unemployed ex-service men across the country.

The Lancashire Evening Post reported that the match “proved a great success” and “financially, the event far exceeded the anticipations of the organisers.“ Receipts on the night totalled £594 including £14, 5s collected “chiefly by ladies” during the half-time interval.

Once total ticket sales were calculated over £600 (an estimated £31,222 in today’s money) was handed over to the Unemployed Servicemans Distress Fund.

The Sunday Mirror claimed the team had now raised a total exceeding £11,000 in aid of various charities (£600,000 today). Frankland was soon advised by a journalist that Dick, Kerr Ladies could raise over £1,000 if they played a game on Merseyside.

On Boxing Day, a staggering 53,000 spectators saw them defeat St Helens at Goodison Park, a world record for a woman’s football match which stood for 99 years.

At least 18 of the Dick, Kerr Ladies’ 30 matches in 1920 attracted five-figure attendances. Where figures were recorded, they pulled in an average following of 13,542 across all the games they played in 1920, higher than the 12,883 average attendance for the men’s second tier in 1919/20.

Many believe the Football Association saw the popularity of women’s football as a threat to the existence of its clubs.

The following December, the FA Council passed a resolution banning Football League clubs from hosting matches between women’s team in their stadiums, citing “complaints having been made as to football being played by women, council felt impelled to express the strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and should not be encouraged.

“Complaints have also been made as to the conditions under which some of the matches have been arranged and played, and the appropriation of receipts to other than charitable objects. The council [is] further of the opinion that an excessive proportion of the receipts are absorbed in expenses and an inadequate percentage devoted to charitable objects.

“For these reasons the council requests the clubs belonging to the Association refuse the use of their grounds for such matches.”

As an immediate consequence of this ruling Dick, Kerr Ladies were forced to play in smaller non-league grounds with less media exposure, an issue which continues to hamper the development of women’s football to this day.

It was not until 1956 that the first Football League match took place under floodlights. It was another 15 years before the Football Association lifted its ban on women’s matches.

Aged just 15 in 1920, left back Lily Parr would be pushed forward into attack the following year and become a scoring sensation finding the net on a reported 986 goals during a 32-year career.

Last June, she received the honour of becoming the first women’s player to be commemorated with a statue at the National Football Museum in Manchester. Next spring, it will open a new gallery dedicated to her life and legacy.