Emma Clarke (footballer)

Emma Clarke
Personal information
Date of birth	1876
Place of birth	Liverpool
Playing position	Goalkeeper,; Right winger
Senior career*
	* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Emma Clarke (born 1876^[1]) was a British footballer, considered to be the first known black women's footballer in Britain.^[1]

Early life

Born in Liverpool, to parents William and Wilhelmina Clarke, Emma, along with her sister Jane, who was also one of the earliest known black women footballers in Britain, grew up in Bootle. She worked as a confectioner's apprentice from the age of 15, and received her formative sporting education playing the game in her neighbourhood streets, in an area very close to where the suffragist Helen Graham Matthews lived. Matthews later gave her name to the team for which Clarke played at the beginning of the twentieth century, Mrs Graham's XI.^[1]

Football career

Clarke normally played as an outfield player, described by the South Wales Daily News as the fleet footed dark girl on the right wing.^[1] Her club football career began in 1895 when she made her debut for the British Ladies,^[1] not an international team, but an early all women's football club patronized by Lady Florence Dixie. A number of individuals named "Clarke" make it difficult to provide precise details as to Clarke's career with the British Ladies, however, photographic evidence shows her lined up in the official team photo for the "South" team of the British Ladies in their inaugural exhibition match,^[2]^{[note 1]} a game watched by more than 10,000^{[note 2]} people at Crouch End, London, a game which Clarke's "South" team lost 7–1.^[2]

Although the first record of a woman's team coming together to play football occurred on 7 May 1881, at Edinburgh's Easter Road Stadium in a match, billed as a Scotland v England international (though it was not a full international in the modern sense of the word),^[3] this match is generally recognized as the first women's football match played under association rules in front of such a crowd and at what was then a notable ground and is thus generally considered to be the first organized game of women's football.^[2]

The following year, Clarke made her debut for Mrs Graham's XI, selected as part of the team which toured Scotland that year.^[1] Interest in the tour was substantial and their matches regularly attracted crowds numbering in the thousands.^[1] As well as receiving payment for expenses, it is estimated that Clarke would have been paid approximately a shilling a week whilst on the tour.^[1]

In 1897, she made an appearance for a team described as "The New Woman and Ten of Her Lady Friends" against "Eleven Gentlemen".^[4] The ladies team were victorious 3–1, although the report at the time made it clear the feelings about the women's game at the time, describing the game as a grotesque, although conceding that in the second half the ladies distinguished themselves.^[4] It is also thought that her sister played in this match.^[1]

Her career as a footballer continued until at least 1903.^[1]

Legacy

For decades, Clarke and her contribution to the game was mistaken for goalkeeper Carrie Boustead, once described by a journalist as "a coloured lady of Dutch build" who was later confirmed to be white. Clarke was rediscovered by artist Stuart Gibbs only when a photo of the team that toured Scotland was discovered. He then identified that the player in question was Clarke, not Boustead.^[1]

Theatre company, Futures Theatre, wrote a play called Offside which celebrates the contribution women have made to the game and which dramatizes the story of Clarke.^[1]

Notes

↑ For their exhibition games, the British Ladies would often field two teams from the club, named either "North" and "South" or "Red" and "Blue"
↑ Variously reported in newspapers at the time as up to 11,000

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Kessel, Anna (28 March 2017). "Revealed: Britain's first black female footballer after case of mistaken identity". guardian.co.uk. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
1 2 3 Brennan, Patrick. "The British Ladies' Football Club". donmouth.co.uk. Patrick Brennan. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
↑ Domeneghetti, R. (2014) From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football's journey through the English media page 155 Ockley Books. ISBN 1783015586 Retrieved February 2015
1 2 "Grotesque Football at Alford". Hull Daily Mail. 2 April 1897.