Kicking Back: What About the ‘Old’ Manchester United Ladies?

Manchester United fielded a women’s team long before Casey Stoney’s twenty-one strangers, and She Kicks tells that story because almost nobody else has. Manchester United Ladies FC began in 1977 as a supporters’ club side, affiliated to the men’s club in 1989 and immediately won a double, trained one night a week at The Cliff and paid to play. They reached Wembley twice: an exhibition match in 1994 and a 2-0 win over Newcastle before the 1996 Charity Shield, after which they were seated in the Newcastle end still in their kit and took some stick. They won their league that year. In 2005, as the North West prepared to host the Euros, United scrapped them entirely.