Female referees in England: a short history

With Rebecca Welch about to make history as the first female referee in the Premier League, we thought we would take a short look at the history of female referees in English football. They have had a long, if overlooked presence in the game.

Rebecca Welch
Image: EL Loko Foto

Who was the first female referee?

Quite who was the first woman to take control of a game will most likely be forever unknown. Referees for early women’s games of Association football in the nineteenth century seem to have been controlled by men, but by the 1900s we find the first reports of women involved in education controlling schoolboy games. Male teachers were expected to referee school games, but in cases where they were not available, women stepped in.

Credit: British Newspaper Archive

Newspapers provide fleeting glimpses of these women. For example, in 1967, the Rugeley Times reported on the sudden passing of Sister Mary Etheldra, a teacher at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic School in Rugeley, Staffordshire. Born in Tipperary and baptised Nerah Mary Ryan, she joined the Rugeley Convent and took up teaching at St. Joseph’s in 1913, at the instigation of her uncle, who was also the parish priest. The paper reported that, “Sister Etheldra is remembered by two generations of boys as the nun who could referee them at football as well as any man.”

Were women encouraged to become referees at this time?

Sadly, no. The basic step for any man at this time was to take a County FA referee examination. Passing it was the first step to becoming a registered referee. The first known attempt by a woman to take it took place in 1919. What happened was to set a pattern of sexist behaviour in the decades to follow.

Credit: Leeds Mercury

Mrs Butler was a teacher at Ryde House School in Ripley, Surrey. The Vote, a women’s suffrage newspaper, described her as a keen cyclist and a “keen sportswoman generally. She teaches swimming to the boys under her charge, and helps largely in other directions in their athletic education.”

When she arrived to take the examination, the surprised officials refused to let her take the test. One paper reported that “she replied that her form had been accepted and that consequently she ought to be examined.”

The Surrey FA subsequently decided that applications from women should not be accepted, lest they set “a dangerous precedent”. Writing in a newspaper, John Lewis, a senior FA official and former referee, claimed that “a woman could not be expected to keep pace with men and could hardly follow the game as we expect a man to do.”

Did any women manage to take the test?

In the decades after, a small number of women managed to take the test. Perhaps the first woman to do so was Swindon schoolteacher Brenda Russell. She came from a refereeing family, as her late father was Major William Russell, referee of the 1924 FA Cup final. In 1948 the Weekly Dispatch reported that she passed the examination, coming out top with a 94% success rate. She had taken it so she could “correctly interpret the rules when refereeing junior games.”

Her father had been President of the Wiltshire FA, and perhaps this accounts for the lack of formal opposition to her taking the test. Not all men were supportive though. In the same year, the National Association of Schoolmasters declared that teaching boys was “a man’s – not a woman’s job.”

So, Brenda was the first registered female referee?

Actually, it seems not. Reports at the time mentioned that she was not registered, although there was nothing prohibiting this in FA regulations. Because she focused on school games, she did not need to register on the County FA list of referees. The Somerset FA adopted a similar approach to schoolteacher Beryl Pugh in 1957. They allowed her to take the test but did not give her the certificate that male referees received, just a written confirmation that she had passed.

But for Beryl, it was still a proud achievement, “People laughed when I deputised for the sports master as referee at a school game…That made me even more determined to qualify and show critics that Soccer can be a women’s game too.”

Did things improve after this?

No, if anything, they got worse! In 1967 Pat Dunn passed the Dorset County FA examination. She was different from earlier cases, as she was not a schoolteacher, and was already refereeing local men’s games. She had to overcome opposition from the Dorset FA and the national FA to take the test. Afterwards though, they told her that “no certificate would be issued because the examination board had found that a) women are not allowed to play football and b) you wear glasses.”

As Professor Jean Williams writes, ‘combining sexism with disability discrimination in one fell swoop, this ruling neatly ignored the numbers of bespectacled male referees.’ But the FA were not content with this. Instead, they went further and instituted a ban on women being registered as referees.

Another ban?!

Yep. At this time the FA still enforced it’s 1921 ban on its club’s hosting women’s teams. Sexist attitudes were still very strong, as this ban was only overturned between 1969 and 1970 due to pressure from UEFA.

The FA’s ban on registering female referees lasted from 1967 to 1976. It was only overturned because of the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975. During this period women might still take the examination (if the men were feeling generous), but might not receive the certificate, and were only meant to referee school or women’s games. In 1973 the Women’s Football Association started registering female referees and awarding them certificates after they passed the test. For those wanting to referee, it was a testing time. In 1970 the Coventry Evening Telegraph reported on the plight of sixteen-year-old typist Julie Smith.

“A young Coventry typist has become one of the few women football referees in Britain. But no-one seems to want her services.”

She had recently taken and passed the Birmingham Football Association’s referee’s examination. Four other women, all teachers, had also passed the test to help with refereeing school matches. Julie alone took the test with the hopes of refereeing other grassroots games. She had to wait until 1976 before she could referee a men’s game.

Who were some of the trailblazers once the ban was overturned?

Elizabeth Forsdick became the first female official in the history of the FA Cup in 1981
Elizabeth Forsdick became the first female official in the history of the FA Cup in 1981.

A notable landmark took place in 1981 when Elizabeth Forsdick became a Class 1 Referee. In the same year, she became the first female official in the history of the FA Cup when she acted as a linesperson during a Third Round Qualifying game. Her biggest supporter was her husband, who was also a referee.

A signed picture of Wendy Toms from the Women’s Football Collection.
A signed picture of Wendy Toms from the Women’s Football Collection.

In the 1990s, Wendy Toms became the first woman to be included as an assistant-official in the Football League and the Premier League. Her presence was sadly not welcomed by all. In our archive we hold copies of the Football Referee, the official magazine of the Referee’s Association, and in the issue of November 1994, a letter was published which criticised remarks made at a local RA society talk by a ‘highly respected Premier League official…to my astonishment he was highly critical of Wendy’s promotion and raised some very peculiar (in my mind) objections.’ Among these were “it’s a man’s game and women don’t fit in.”

Despite these views, Wendy was chosen in 2000 to be an assistant official in the Football League Cup final at Wembley between Leicester City and Tranmere Rovers. She also refereed at the 2005 UEFA Women’s European Championship.

Amy Fearn’s shirt from 2010, when she refereed her first men’s professional game.

The first woman to referee a game in the Football League was Amy Fearn in 2010. When the original referee was injured, she took over the final twenty minutes of Coventry City v Nottingham Forrest in the Championship. In 2023 she was awarded MBE for her services to Association Football. The same honour was awarded to Sian Massey-Ellis in 2017, who had become only the second woman to become an assistant-referee in the Premier League.

In 2011 she was the subject of sexist comments by Sky Television presenters Richard Keys and Andy Grey which led to their sacking. She has been selected for six FIFA Women’s World Cups between 2007 and 2023.