Mary Blake was part of an England Ladies team that played in the first women’s European Championship in 1969.
An original Lioness who played for an England women’s team in its first major tournament has said the current team’s achievements are “everything we hoped would be achieved for women’s football”.
Asked if she ever thought an England women’s team would achieve this level of success, Ms Blake said: “Believe it or not, we always hoped it would because as I say, at that time we did have a couple of girls who were asked to stay in Italy and play professionally or semi-professionally.“They just didn’t want women to play, I don’t know why.
“I was only 16 years of age – we had big crowds then and it was on television, and we did get publicity when we came back – it was in the newspapers. Ms Blake said although she was unable to attend the World Cup final, she did watch the Lionesses’ Euro 22 win at Wembley.
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