She may not have been afforded the same platform as the current crop of Lionesses, but Sue Lopez MBE was one of England’s early superstars.
Born and bred in Southampton, Sue fast became one of the key players in the city’s all-conquering women’s team, featuring in ten Women’s FA Cup Finals and collecting eight winners’ medals, and enjoyed a groundbreaking stint overseas with Roma.
The museum recently received a very generous donation of memorabilia, paraphernalia and documentation from Sue’s estate, affording our Collections team with a remarkably full picture of her life and career, as well as shedding more light on a lesser-known period of the game.
Below are just a small selection of objects in the museum’s possession, many of which can be seen in our Match Gallery.
This is Sue Lopez’s Lionesses legacy cap. In late 2022, The FA marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first official England Women fixture by releasing legacy numbers, based on the chronology of player debuts.
Sue had previously featured in two unofficial representative fixtures at the 1969 Coppa Europa per Nazioni, scoring a hat-trick in vain in a 4-3 defeat against Denmark, but scoring the second in a 2-0 win over France.
She would make her official Lionesses debut some four years later: the18th woman to do so.
This was the cap given to Sue to commemorate her official debut appearance against Northern Ireland in 1973.
The cap was homemade as the WFA, entirely independent of The FA, could not afford to buy anything more official.
The forward scored her first England goal three games later, and went on to accrue another 21 caps over the course of her international career.
A photograph of Sue Lopez, posing with Southampton teammates and the WFA Cup after one of their eight triumphs.
The Saints were undoubtedly the best women’s team of the post-ban era, appearing in ten of the first eleven Women’s FA Cup Finals.
Sue scored a crucial goal in the 1972 edition, helping her side see off Lee’s Ladies at Eton Park.
Sue was the first Englishwoman to play in a semi-professional league abroad when she signed for CF Roma in 1971.
The Italian giants had purportedly taken note of Lopez’s talents when she featured in the aforementioned Coppa Europa per Nazioni in northern Italy.
She featured in the recently established league from April to November, before returning to Southampton in order to continue her international career.
Finally, this is one of Sue’s shirts from her time with the England Women side.
By the time an official national team was established in 1972, Sue was 27 years old. Games were comparatively sporadic in those early years, with only three or four fixtures scheduled per calendar year, but Lopez proved to be a regular starter for much of the seventies.
Sue scored the last of her six goals (a brace) against the Republic of Ireland in 1978, and retired from international duty one year later.