10 People who changed football for good

#9 Sylvia Gore

(Image Courtesy: Manchester City Official)

When thinking of influential women in football, the majority of names that spring to mind are most likely still engaged and active in the game today. This underpins exactly how late the flourish of women in football has been, especially compared to the rise of ethnic diversities in football. This is what makes MBE Sylvia Gore’s story all the more remarkable.

Born in Prescot, England in 1944, Gore holds the accolade of scoring the England national women’s team’s first ever goal in its first official game against Scotland in 1972. Despite the sport being banned for women in the UK for a 50 year period, Gore continued to play nonetheless, albeit on bad quality pitches with poor facilities. Football was a priority in Gore’s life; she once spoke of quitting her day job to partake in a Corinthians football charity tour in South America, which enabled her to showcase her prolific goal-scoring ability in front of thousands of fans.

Gore once scored 134 goals in a single season; she was engulfed by the game from a young age (her father John played for Prescot Cables) and she laid down a marker for women in football, playing through a time of sporting oppression.