Leicester City Ladies F.C. originated in 1966 as Leicester Ladies Women's F.C. affiliating with the W.F.A. we then joined the Midlands League. The club is the largest ladies football club in the region.

As the club grew we ran two teams, each playing in different divisions of the League. Searching for a fresh challenge for the first team, the club was streamlined to one league team and joined the Nottinghamshire Ladies League where we progressed through the 3rd and 2nd divisions before establishing ourselves in the 1st division.

Within the last few years, Ladies football has been re-organised to be compatible with the sports council regions. Consequently the Nottinghamshire league became the East Midlands Ladies League. Our highest placing was in 1992 when we finished second.

Unfortunately our match facilities were not of the required standard to accept the offer of application to the National League.

We reformed our Reserves team to cater for the increased interest in our sport locally, and in 1992, we formed a junior section to cater for the under 16's.

This development is a priority in our game. Our junior sections attract around eighty youngsters. 1993 saw the formation of a third senior league team to satisfy the need for competitive matches. In 1992, we became associated with the Leicester City Football Club.

Since then, we have developed our structure to become one of the largest clubs in the country today. We now run three senior teams in the Unison East Midland Ladies League and Midlands Combination Division.

Women's Football History

Women's football has been played for a long time, with records of matches in Scotland in 1892 and England in 1895. However, the women's game was frowned upon by the British Football Associations at first. It continued without their support, becoming more popular during the First World War. In 1921 the Football Association in England decided that the women’s game was ‘distasteful’ and banned it from Association pitches.

The English Women's FA was formed in 1969 as a result of the increased interest generated by the 1966 World Cup, and the FA's ban on matches being played on members' grounds was finally lifted in 1971. In the 1970s, Italy became the first country with part-time professional women's football players. The USA formed a full-time national squad in 1984, and in 1992 Japan was the first country to have a professional women's football league. The strongest women's teams in the world today are the USA, Germany, Norway, China and Sweden.

At the beginning of the 21st century, women's football, like men's football, has become professionalised and is growing in both popularity and participation – hundreds of thousands of tickets were sold for the 2003 Women's World Cup and the 2005 Women’s Euro tournament. However, as in other sports, women players earn far less than their male counterparts and women's football gets far less media coverage than the men's game.