In June 1947, South Melbourne Football Club advertised for women who'd be keen to play a game at the Swans' Lake Oval headquarters the next month.

As an added benefit, their efforts would raise money for the Red Cross 'Food for Britain' appeal that was delivering desperately needed resources for a ravaged England, which was still recovering from World War II and was now at the mercy of catastrophic floods.

To that stage, women's football had been played only sporadically around the country over the previous 30 years, and usually only for charity, such were the prevailing community attitudes.  So prospective female footballers jumped at this rare opportunity to play on a League ground.

The Swans were inundated with phone calls and letters from hundreds of women, the South Melbourne Record newspaper noted.  It was deemed noteworthy that some applicants were married women, including a "Mrs C. Curtin", the wife of St Kilda player Jack Curtin.

South Melbourne official Frank Hay told The Herald: "I had enough (applicants) to start a women's competition. "Now there's an idea – and it should have only been reinforced by what followed”.  With so many female players offering their services, the Swans discarded their initial plan to stage a single game – instead, they would host a lightning premiership.

To gain maximum exposure, South Melbourne scheduled the event for a Sunday – July 6, 1947 – and enlisted three other clubs – St Kilda, Carlton and Footscray along with the Swans, would be represented by a women's team.

The organisers were also overwhelmed by the community response to the event, which attracted a "tremendous" estimated crowd of 25,000.  Only one men's game drew more spectators that season and that was a bitter showdown between 1945 'Bloodbath' Grand Final adversaries South Melbourne and Carlton.

As for the women's footy, the Swans gained bragging rights over their "lakeside rivals" St Kilda in the first game with a 7.4 (46) to 1.1 (7) victory.  Footscray also won easily against Carlton – 2.6 (18) to nil – to advance to the final against South Melbourne.

The play-off, which the papers said was played at a surprisingly high standard given the limited preparation, ended in a draw at 2.4 (16) apiece.  At the final siren, "thousands of cheering spectators swarmed onto the ground in a wild rush to congratulate the women".

All in attendance deserved congratulations given they added to the Food for Britain appeal coffers by £650, which in today's money is about $45,000.  No wonder it was trumpeted as a "splendid return".

Hawthorn’s first Women’s Football Team - 1947 

The women’s round-robin at South Melbourne was to inspire other similar matches associated with VFL/AFL clubs during 1947.  At Hawthorn, on August 9, the President of the Hawthorn Boy’s Club, Mr Frank P Guy and Committee member, Mr Charles Behrendt announced that a Women’s Football Cup would be presented for competition between a Hawthorn women’s football team and teams representing South Melbourne, Footscray, Carlton, and St Kilda to be held at the Glenferrie Oval.  On this occasion, the charity receiving the funds was the Hawthorn Boys’ Club.  The Boy’s Club changed its name in 1957 to the Hawthorn Youth Club when girls were invited to join.  In 2021 saw a third change to the group’s name to The Hawthorn Community and Youth Club to embrace the wider diversity.

A delightful photo was taken of the happy smiling Hawthorn team dressed in the correct Hawthorn gear borrow from the men’s team prior to round robin commencing.  The captain was 16-year-old Peggy Seaton.

South Melbourne won the lightening premiership with the winning players each receiving their own eggcup and spoon.  Gloria Dockas was judged Hawthorn’s Best & Fairest Player.  Gloria was a great believer in football being a game for women in which she excelled.  She was also an outstanding player in the Victorian Women’s A-Grade basketball competition and played cricket with the Parkside Ladies Cricket Club.

Thanks to Christine Dockas & Robb Hess for permission to use the Girls 1947 team.

If anyone can provide photos or games involving women playing football at Hawthorn can you please contact the Hawks Museum hawksmuseum@hawthornfc.com.au. We know of one such game when two teams coached by Leigh Matthews and Peter Knights played an exhibition match during Family Day during the early 1980s and there is a story that the Hawthorn Girls played the Geelong Girls in 1963 umpired by the 1961 Premiership player, Ian Law.