Don’t be deceived by the smiles. These England players relaxing by the pool at the Britannique Hotel in Naples may appear friendly, but it was into this same pool that they chucked a fully clothed referee!
The reason? Their frustration with his performance after England’s 3-1 defeat to Italy in the semi-finals in the 1979 Coppa Europa per Nazioni. And the source of this story? No less than the official England Women’s Football Association Newsletter, courtesy of a report from distinguished international player Sue Lopez.
With England competing in the 2025 UEFA Women’s European Championship, we are continuing to look at the tournaments that preceded the first official UEFA tournament in the 1983/84 season.
The largest was the 1979 Coppa Europa per Nazioni, organized by the International Federation of Feminin Football (FIFF) a decade after their first tournament in 1969. While UEFA recommended in 1971 that national associations should govern women’s football in their countries, UEFA itself did nothing to organize any major tournaments. Indeed, as Professor Jean Williams points out in A Beautiful Game: International Perspectives on Women’s Football, UEFA noted the tournament as a ‘a cause for concern’ in meetings held after the tournament. (Page 30). In response, UEFA finally instituted their own tournament for the 1983/84 season. England reached the first final, only to lose on penalties in the second leg.
Whereas the 1969 tournament saw four nations compete (England, France, Denmark, and Italy), eleven nations competed in 1979. These were Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
England were drawn in Group B, along with Finland and Switzerland. On the 19 July they beat Finland 3-1 in Sorrento with two goals from Pat Chapman, plus another unknown scorer. Four days later they beat Switzerland 2-0, again in Sorrento, with Sheila Parker and another unknown player scoring.
The photos below captures the England team on the eve of their semi-final against Italy at the home of Seria A side Napoli in Naples. Then called the Stadio San Paolo, it is now known as the Stadium Diego Maradona, after the great Argentinian striker who transformed Napoli’s fortunes in the 1980s.
These images come from a scrapbook kept by the Cleveland Ladies manager John Sim. In 1979 he became the temporary manager of the WFA England team after the long-serving Tommy Tranter had stepped down.
John’s scrapbook was very kindly loaned to the museum for digital archiving by Marrie Wieczorek, one of John’s Cleveland players and a Lioness herself. Through her assistance we have been able to digitize the scrapbook and these rare colour photographs. We are also fortunate to have received images from Sue Lopez, including this photo of the England team on the eve of their game with Italy.
Sadly, England lost 3-1 on the 25 July, with Linda Curl scoring for England. Their final game on the 27 July in Scafati saw them draw 0-0 with Sweden before losing 4-3 on penalties to finish fourth in the tournament. In the penalty shoot-out England adopted an unusual opening approach, as Jean William explains in Legendary Lionesses: The England Women’s Football Team, 1972-2022,
‘Perhaps the experiment of having a goalkeeper as one of the first four penalty takers in a squad was intended to be revolutionary, but the innovation did not, on this occasion, work.’ (pp.66-67)
Denmark went onto beat Italy 2-0 in the final to cap an excellent decade for the national team.
The tournament also marked the end of Sue Lopez’s England career, a player who had done much to develop and promote the game since she started playing in 1966. She wrote in her book, Women on the Ball (1997), that the game against Sweden, ‘was to be my last international appearance. Like many players, I had become frustrated at the game’s lack of leadership and decided to concentrate on getting my coaching qualifications.’ (p.99).
Fittingly, her last touch was to convert a penalty in the shoot-out. Lopez went onto became a highly respected and important coach and administrator in English football, manager of Wales, and historian of women’s football.
Any historian researching the 1979 tournament is indebted to Lopez’s account for the WFA Newsletter which includes numerous details about the off-field activities, jokes, and high-jinks of the England team. Women’s teams often enjoyed singing before and after games, particularly on long bus journeys. When they had to share the bus to their game with Switzerland, they were disappointed to find the Swiss players somewhat unfriendly.
This was compensation though in the friendly Italian match officials, who particularly enjoyed joining in with a song from a popular Walls Cornetto ice-cream advert in Britain, set to the traditional Neapolitan song ‘O Sole Mio’ (1898).
If anyone deserved an ice-cream, it was England captain Carol Thomas, who had given her honeymoon to play in the tournament. But perhaps the best person to tell that story is Carol. In our next blog, she shares the inside story of a very special summer for her.
Acknowledgements and Sources
Correspondence with Carol Thomas, 2025.
http://www.englandfootballonline.com/matchrsl/MatchRslTmWompg1.html
Sue Lopez, Women on the Ball: A Guide to Women’s Football (1997)
Jean Williams, A History of Women’s Football (2021)
Jean Williams, Legendary Lionesses: The England Women’s Football Team, 1972-2022 (2023)