Darlington Quaker Girls – the crack women’s football team of the north

“Referees couldn’t stand it, neither could the spectators, and what can the baby think about it?” he continued. “Of course, these people in years to come will be able to tell the story of how they played for Darlington, but surely that is nothing to brag about.”

Next week, 95 years later, the descendants of “these people” will kick off the 13th Women’s European Championship which will culminate with a final at Wembley – a ground from which, had it existed in 1927, women would have been banned.

Pip’s cartoon, from the D&S Times’ former sister paper, the Evening Despatch, was pasted into the front of a scrapbook by Lillie Galloway, who played in that first game and then became manager, leading her Darlington Quaker Girls to become “the crack women’s football team of the north” with two of her players starring for England.

Lillie Galloway, pictured with the scrapbook which is now in the possession of her great-grand-daughters

During the First World War, many factories which had suddenly come to rely on female workers started women’s teams – these girls were called “munitionettes”, as many of them made ammunition. Their matches proved popular, attracting such big crowds that in 1921, the Football Association banned them from playing on men’s professional grounds (this ban remained until 1971).

Women’s football went underground, and Lillie’s scrapbook, which now belongs to her great-grand-daughters, tells how she formed her team in 1925.

Darlington FC gave the women strips and allowed them to train at Feethams, even though they could not play matches there, and Lillie raffled a bag of flour to raise money for boots.

Pip's cartoon from the Northern Despatch of January 1927 mocking the Quaker Ladies

The first known match was on January 3, 1927, and the players changed in the upstairs of Lillie’s house in Askrigg Street, off North Road, and then yomped to a plot of waste ground in the shadow of the Five Arches mainline railway bridge for kick off.

Pip's cartoon from the Northern Despatch of January 1927 mocking the Quaker Ladies

The nation was in the depths of the economic recession and Lil’s team played as Darlington Labour Women against Windlestone Labour Women to raise money for the Miners’ Boot Fund. They lost 5-3, which inspired Pip to cruelly draw pictures of the Darlington women laying in the goal and using their backsides to keep the ball out.

That Darlington side featured sisters Sarah and Betty Hooper who would be stars of the team for the next decade. Their brothers, Bill and Mark, played for the Quakers, and Mark was on his way to becoming an FA Cup-winning legend at Sheffield Wednesday.

Lillie drove the team forward. She was married to James, a footballer, and had four sons who helped her with the coaching, but it was she who washed the kits and cleaned the boots.

The Quaker Ladies in 1932 with Lillie on the left of the back row. This was probably taken at the RA ground in Brinkburn Road before the Good Friday match against Terry's Chocolate Girls, in which Betty Hooper scored both of Darlington's goals in a 4-2

In 1928, her women played their first Good Friday match as part of the railwaymen’s carnival. They took on Windlestone once more at the Railway Athletic (RA) ground in Brinkburn Road, and raised money for the National Union of Railwaymen’s Orphans Fund.

In 1929, Lillie's Good Friday charity match was condemned by the Council of Christian Witness as a “degrading display”. This obviously boosted the gate, as more than 7,000 watched a 3-3 draw (the professional male Quakers only drew 5,340 that weekend for their match at Feethams).

For Good Friday 1931, Durham FA tried to prevent the women from playing at the RA ground, but a local backlash forced them to relent and the Quaker Ladies beat the Darlington Redcaps 3-1 (two goals from Betty Hooper).

Good Friday 1932 saw the first of seven annual home fixtures against Terry’s Chocolate Girls from York, which attracted crowds of up to 10,000.

After two defeats, the Quaker Ladies emerged as the dominant force – in 1934, at the Hundens Lane rugby pitch, Priscilla Roddham scored five goals as the Chocolate Girls melted to a 10-1 defeat.

The Darlington Quaker Ladies team photo with the cups they had won during the 1931-32 season. Lillie Galloway is on the right and her husband, James, is on the left

By the mid-1930s, the Quaker Ladies were attracting national attention. “Founded by Mrs Galloway to raise funds for a miners' charity, the girls play about a dozen matches a season and have a wonderful record of successes,” says a cutting from a national newspaper. “The gate money is all devoted to charity and the players earn nothing for their skill beyond an occasional present of a string of beads or a powder compact.”

In 1937, Lillie swooped in the transfer market, and signed 19-year-old “fair-haired and blue-eyed” Lydia Clements, from Glasgow. Lydia had been playing for ten years and wrote to Lillie, as manager of the most successful side in northern England, asking for a game. There is a note of incredulity in the cuttings that Lydia – who was “essentially feminine” – had given up her job as a curtain-maker and left her boyfriend behind to live with Lillie in Askrigg Street.

Lillie Galloway with the ball with her new signing Lydia Clements on the left. On the right is Doris Brown and Florrie Harbron is in the centre. In 1937

She went straight into the side for the Good Friday fixture against the Chocolate Girls.

“Speedy and, despite dainty ankles, able to swing a pretty pass, she raised several cheers in the first quarter of an hour,” says a cutting, as she helped Darlington win 5-2.

Lydia doesn’t get another mention in the scrapbook – perhaps because “the Fighting Quakers”, as they were now nicknamed, had stars aplenty.

In the 1938 Good Friday match, they beat the Chocolate Girls 2-0 with Priscilla Roddham and Greta Plews – who was 4ft 4ins tall and known as “Jackie” – scoring the goals. The duo were then selected to play for an England XI against Scotland in a greyhound stadium in Newcastle. England triumphed 4-2, with Jackie scoring a hat-trick and Priscilla, the other Quaker lady, getting the fourth.

This international high point marked the end for the Quaker Ladies.

Lydia Clements, of Glasgow, shocks the football world by signing for the Darlington Quaker Ladies in 1937

On the eve of the 1939 Good Friday match, Lillie announced that Darlington could not muster a team to take on the Chocolate Girls, and their boots would be filled by a side of Teesside shopgirls called the Stockton Nomads. A cutting tells how Lillie is “sadly disappointed” that family duties had stopped so many of her girls playing.

Referring to Dick Kerr’s Ladies from Preston, who were the all-conquering Manchester City of the day, the cutting continues: “The Quaker Ladies have an exceptional record of successes. The only women's team they have not beaten is Preston ladies, and they have won the Cramp Challenge Cup twice, the Darlington Carnival Cup twice, the Redcar Illuminations Festival Cup, the Witton Park Carnival Cup, the NUR shield and several sets of medals and souvenirs.” Another cutting hails them as the North Eastern Counties Champions.

Lillie pledged to rebuild her team, but, of course, later in 1939, war broke out, and the Darlington Quaker Ladies never reformed.

Lillie died in Hundens Hospital in 1971, and now her remarkable scrapbook belongs to her great-grand-daughters, Beverley Avery and Gail, Nicola and Joanne Henderson, who have loaned it to the Arthur Wharton Foundation. The foundation promotes the legacy of Wharton, whose career as the first black professional footballer began in Darlington.

Beverley Avery, left, and her sister Gail Henderson, with Toni Upton, the current Darlington Ladies captain, and Shaun Campbell from the Arthur Wharton Foundation in front of the mural of Arthur in Widdowfield Street, Darlington

“Our aim is to connect the present to the past for the future, and the attitudes that existed back in the days of the Quaker Ladies are still, in some places, prevalent now,” says Danny Howes, of the foundation.

“But football is everyone’s game – it shouldn’t just be seen as a men’s game.

“Last season was the first that Darlington FC, which is nearly 140 years old, ran a women’s team. It is now established as a focal point for women’s football in the town, and the foundation sponsors two of the players. It is part of Arthur’s legacy to promote all aspects of the game.”

In 1889, Arthur made his professional debut for Rotherham, which is hosting three games in the 2022 women’s Euros. The foundation is putting on an exhibition at the ground to convey the message of inclusivity for which Lillie Galloway and the Darlington Quaker Ladies were such great torchbearers.

Any stories of the Quaker Ladies would be most welcome. Much information taken from the donmouth.co.uk website which deals with North East women’s football in some depth