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rifleman_lincolnI’d booked the ticket for this before I realised there was a football match, but it seems this was much more enjoyable!
The Ladies Football Club tells the story of women’s football through the lives of eleven munitions workers in wartime Sheffield. What begins as a lunchtime kickabout in the yard of the Doyle & Walker factory grows into a team that plays to huge crowds and helps spark a movement that inspires generations of girls and women to play the game.
It’s very fast and witty and also very physical, with choreography representing the football matches; and shows the experiences of women who stayed behind to keep factories running while the men went off to fight in the First World War. Though firmly located in Sheffield, the story unfolds against the wider social upheaval of the war years and includes politics, trade unionism, pathos and humour. And of course arguments made, fallings-out and makings-up as you’d expect between eleven very different women!
The shadow of war never lifts entirely. News arrives of men returning injured or not at all. Some come back changed beyond recognition, carrying both physical and emotional wounds. These are offset by the lighter moments, seeing football in the factory yard as a form of escape; the women longing not just to be defined as ‘wife’, ‘sister’, ‘mother’, ‘daughter’.
The set was very minimal – monochrome to represent the factory life as well as the trenches. Messages from Mr Walker "on high" come down a chute in a tube - he never appears on the factory floor! The backdrop was also used to represent football grounds, and uplighting through the floor picked out the football matches and showed off the footballing skills.
The match sequences were brilliantly done. Using lifts, balances and tightly choreographed patterns, the cast show the pace and physicality of football through stylised, slow-motion movement.
The team forms almost by accident, led by two friends who’d grown up with brothers, kicking a ball in the street. (One confesses that her mother wanted her to be a Nun and her father wanted her to be centre forward for Sheffield Wednesday!).
Their improvised kit bears the initials “SFC” and such is the printing, some come out sideways or backwards. The women jokingly suggest it might stand for “Sheffield Funeral Company” rather than “Sheffield Football Club”, a moment of dark humour that reflects the wartime setting.
As their reputation grows, proper kit follows, but the initials remain.
Among the team is a fiery left-winger (geddit?) whose political bite is never far from the surface; one who provides sharp commentary by quoting newspaper headlines from the family newsagent’s shop; one who is the minister’s daughter struggling with family expectation; and one begins as an outsider but gradually becomes central to the group, her journey mirroring the team’s own growing confidence.
As the women’s success grows, so do the venues: from local fields against an opposition called “The Atherstone Dragons” which terrifies them until they decide to bite back and win 10-1; to Hillsborough and eventually Stamford Bridge in front of thousands.
The play also reminds us that women’s football did not advance unopposed. In 1921, The Football Association banned women’s matches from its grounds, citing dubious concerns about the impact on women’s health. The decision halted the momentum of the women’s game for decades.
The final sequence, in which each character briefly reveals what becomes of her beyond the story we’ve just seen, is both moving and quietly inspiring, the last one bringing on a young girl, as great-granddaughter, dressed in an England Lionesses’ kit.
The theatre was only half full, but the performance lost nothing because of that and like the best football matches, reminds us that the beauty of the game is not just in scoring goals, but teamwork.
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Date: 2026-03-13 10:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-14 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-03-14 11:54 am (UTC)Sounds like it was more entertainning than the Norwich match - shame about the result.
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Date: 2026-03-14 12:35 pm (UTC)I suppose it was the "cold Wednesday evening in March" effect! :)
I have to admit it was!
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Date: 2026-03-15 02:37 pm (UTC)I would like to see it myself but at the moment I’m not sure that’s going to be possible so I enjoyed your first hand retelling.
Sorry the match was not as much fun. ☹️
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Date: 2026-03-16 01:20 pm (UTC)I think the "cold evening in March" syndrome kept people away, but it didn't seem to matter to the performance which was, indeed, excellent. It was great that it was pertinent to Sheffield, too.
:D