Rachel Ramsey (3:45)

Hello.

Kusha Navadar (3:46)

And joining us from the UK is Carol Wilson, team captain of the 1971 England women's team. Hi, Carol. Welcome to all of it.

Carol Wilson (3:55)

Hi, there. Thank you for having me.

Kusha Navadar (3:57)

Thank you, all three of you so much for joining us. You know, this tournament was forgotten for a long time. Rachel and James, can you tell us why this match was largely forgotten or buried in history? Rachel, let's start with you.

Rachel Ramsey (4:11)

Well, we do say, you know, it's not just that it's been forgotten. This is a tournament and a movement that was really actively repressed. This is not something that was just, you know, sort of fell out of history. This is something that was decided to be far too successful for its own good. And the establishment, the powers that be within soccer across the world thought, you know, this is not something that they wanted to be supporting any further.

Kusha Navadar (4:34)

Yeah. How did you find out about it?

James Erskine (4:36)

We heard it on the radio. You're hearing about it on the radio? We need is radio to find great stories. Yeah. Chris Lockwood, who was one of Carol's teammates, came on the radio, and our producer. Producer, heard it on the Danny Baker show on the BBC in England and was looking to find her lost teammates that she hadn't seen for 47 years. And we heard this story from there, and we just thought it was extraordinary. So we thought we better get digging.

Kusha Navadar (5:02)

Do you remember parts of that interview that surprised you and helped plant the seeds for that documentary?

Rachel Ramsey (5:08)

Well, it was the idea that this was something on such a massive scale that, you know, and that had hadn't been heard about for five decades. And you kind of think immediately, like, if this is true, then this really changes our concept of the history not just of women's sport, but of women's activism and place in the world. And so you kind of. You start with, you know, you start pulling at threads and realizing that the first photographs we saw of this, people were saying, well, that's just men's matches. And then you look closely like, no, those are women on the field.

Carol Wilson (5:39)

Wow.

Kusha Navadar (5:39)

You know, Carol, your story plays a big role in the film. You were the team captain of the England team for this historic championship. You were 19 at the time. When James and Rachel approached you to talk to you about your time, what were your initial reactions?

Carol Wilson (5:59)

Quite flabbergasted, to be honest. We didn't expect anything like this because women's football was repressed. We haven't spoken about it for 50 years. A lot of us didn't even tell our families. In fact, my son came home one night and saw me on Sky News, and he rang me straight away and he said, what the hell? He didn't. He really didn't. He said, where's this all come from? So it was a shock to everybody, I think, but we were grateful. We were so grateful, to be honest. A lot of us thought it was really great, but we didn't really know Rachel or James at the time, and we thought, is this a case of reporters just getting hold of something and then dropping it? And then. Because he'd had a lot of this over the years and. But it wasn't. They were both true to the word and followed it right through. And it took them about four and a half years to make, and it just took off. He got it got legs. How did they. Oh, here we are today.

Kusha Navadar (7:12)

I mean, it's got legs is such a perfect way of describing the soccer documentary. So kudos to that. I hear you, Carol. How did they convince you that your story was worth telling? Do they need to convince you?

Carol Wilson (7:25)

No, no, they didn't. They didn't need to convince us at all because we knew the story was great. No matter what happened over the years, nobody could have taken the experience away from us. So it didn't matter that it really. That it repressed. I mean, you know, I mean, it shouldn't have been. I'm not saying, you know, it should have been. It shouldn't have been, but we'd had that experience and nobody could take that away from us. But once it was out, then it was out of the box and it took off.

Kusha Navadar (8:02)

Yeah.

Carol Wilson (8:03)

And that was a good thing. That was a really good thing. And every. Every radio station, TV stations, people would stop us in the street, and it just. I don't know, it seemed to have. I think. I think in the uk, people tend to like underdogs, and I think. I think a lot of it was. Was a case of that at the time. But it was such a good documentary, and it was. It was full of humility, humor, sadness. It had a whole range of feelings, and it covered everything. It literally Covered everything and all over, right across the six teams as well. You know, it was really great to see the other teams experiencing the same repression that we did, you know?

Kusha Navadar (8:59)

Yeah, yeah. I imagine that a lot of it was about actually seeing after the fact. Wow, how similar the experiences were. Listeners, we're talking about Copa 71. It's a documentary on the largely forgotten. And, you know, Rachel, you mentioned this. Repressed in a lot of ways. Women's World cup tournament in 1971. It's opening tomorrow at IFC center and streaming on Amazon and Apple tv. We're here with Rachel Ramsey and James Erskine, who are the directors, and Carol Wilson joining us from the uk, who was the team captain of the England team during the 1971 Games. Let's talk about the history a little bit here. So, James, the band for women's soccer started in the UK in 1921. What were some of the biggest reasons for a ban? Why an outright ban?

James Erskine (9:43)

Well, I think the reason, the big reason was because the men wanted to control, control, control, control women. I mean, that's not the reasons they gave. The reasons they gave was that it was a risk to their fertility playing something like football. And that was obviously a big threat. But that was all made up. I mean, they made up stuff. They just didn't want women to play. They didn't want to share. You know, women were coming back in the first war, they were asking for things like the vote and, you know, where could this stop? You know, first of all, you get the. You get to play football. You know, I mean, this is. This is. This must stop now, you know, and they were Victorian, and because the sport was controlled by From England at that point, that. That message spread around and a few other guys thought, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's just stop women from playing football.

Kusha Navadar (10:29)

You know, Carol, you grew up during this ban. When you played soccer growing up, what were people saying about it? Were you met with. With stigma, with disdain? What was that like?

Carol Wilson (10:40)

Well, obviously, the kids, you know, were great, were great. They were the same as me. But adults looked down on you as a girl. There I was in a dress, kicking a ball about in the back lane. It was sort of frowned upon, I think you'd say. My dad didn't. He was all for it. He thought it was amazing. And my mum supported me, so I didn't have any trouble with my parents at all, but figures in authority. We weren't allowed even to play in the same schoolyard as the boys when I first started school. And Right up until I finished school, we weren't allowed to play football at all. It wasn't even. It wasn't even going to be thought about. It wasn't even a question. No, you can't. So it wasn't until I joined the Air Force that I managed to get a couple of games, and it was there I was spotted. So.

Kusha Navadar (11:41)

Wow. And do you remember when you first heard about the 1971 World Cup? Did you think it was something that could actually even happen?

Carol Wilson (11:49)

No, No. I thought it was pipe dreams, if I'm honest. In fact, when I went to Sicily to play in the qualifiers, we won all our matches in Sicily, and I was surprised to even get to Sicily. Wow. And it was all paid for. You know, I was, my God, you know, who's this lunatic that's doing this? But I was as surprised as anybody else, as were the girls. But a lot of the girls were young, and I don't think they fully thought through what it meant. You know, I don't think. I don't think they took on board exactly what that meant to a lot of them, the really younger ones. I think what it meant was, oh, great, we're getting to play football at last. You know, it wasn't until later years that they realized exactly what the experience meant.

Kusha Navadar (12:57)

Yeah. You know, there's. There's a text that just came through from a listener who's listening to this segment right now, and it reads, I'm crying listening to her speak. Love this. For reference, I'm from Colombia and grew up seeing football as a boy's sport. So, you know, this conversation continues for generations, for decades. And going back to the history, that band that we're talking about, it started to crack as we approached the 1970s. Women started playing soccer in public, but they were met with harsh treatment, mockery. I want to listen to a quick interview that a reporter has with Trudy McCaffrey, who's one of the teammates who played at the 1971 tournament. Here's that clip.

Carol Wilson (13:36)

Congratulations, Trudy.

Rachel Ramsey (13:38)

What's a nice girl like you doing playing football, though?

Carol Wilson (13:40)

What's wrong with playing football? It's a man's game, isn't it?

Rachel Ramsey (13:43)

No sports for everybody.

Kusha Navadar (13:46)

Why are you so mad keen on football? Why don't you play hockey or something like that?

Carol Wilson (13:50)

Well, it's always been football since I was about three.

Kusha Navadar (13:53)

Rachel, can you tell us a bit about how. I mean, I see you smiling right now, how news journalist media treated women's soccer at that time.

Rachel Ramsey (14:00)

Yeah, I mean, it was. It was Seen as a bit of a joke. You know, there's one headline that we show that came from the period where it says, you know, watching women's football, like, watching women's soccer is like watching a dog walk on its hind legs. It's impressive to see it done, but it's not very well done. And it's, you know, these ideas of, like, women being related to dogs. If they were to play something like this, you know, it feels. It really hits you in the gut and you. And I think realizing, you know, one of the things that was so amazing was talking to all these women around the world and how similar their experiences were. You know, we're talking to Carol in England, and we're talking to Elena in Italy. We're going to Argentina, Mexico, Denmark, France. And there's this huge, like, collective experience that they were having that, you know, they're all growing up as girls who feel like they are the only girl in the world who wants to play football. And for it that they are. They're considered a bit mad. And they're considered. And that's something that I think pretty much every. You know, I interviewed over, like, over 30 of these women around the world, and they all said the same thing. And so to get to Mexico City to realize that you can play in front of 110,000 people and that you found your tribe, I think, you know, that was something that, you know, we weren't expecting how strongly they'd all feel about that.

Kusha Navadar (15:07)

That's so interesting that we weren't expecting. That's where my mind immediately goes to, because you're interviewing women from all around the world who were at a very specific moment in their lives, specific moment in time. Were there other similarities between their experiences that you heard that either surprised you or took you for reframing this whole event in a new way that you weren't expecting when you started the documentary?

Rachel Ramsey (15:28)

I mean, I think the fact that. That all started, you know, playing out on the street and realizing how accessible football really should have been for all of the. For all of these girls want play. The absolute passion, the athleticism, the level of competitiveness. I mean, what was absolutely brilliant is that regardless of who we were talking to and the fact it was five decades on, all those women remember every single tackle. They remember the goals, they. They remember, like, who it was that they were. They were fighting against. And. And yet. And they hadn't seen the footage because the footage had been disappeared for 50 years. So these exist in their emotional memories, and they, you know, they Talk about, you know, what did it feel like to step onto the pitch of the Azteca in front of a crowd like that? And they were able. And this is sort of, you know, I think one thing we love so much about this film is how, you know, how generous all of the women were in taking us back through those emotional memories because, you know, they were really quite traumatized by having been gaslit into believing that this didn't happen for so long.

Kusha Navadar (16:26)

Yeah, we're talking about Copa 71. It's a documentary on the largely forgotten, repressed women's World cup tournament in 1971. It's opening tomorrow at the IFC center and streaming on Amazon and Apple TV. We're talking to Rachel Ramsey and James Erskine, who are the directors. We've also got Carol Wilson, who is the team captain of the England team during the 1971 Games. Got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk more about the documentary, hear another clip, and hear more about the experience. Stay with us. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar, and we're talking about the documentary Copa 71. It talks about the largely repressed and forgotten women's World cup tournament in 1971. It's opening tomorrow at IFC center, and it's streaming on Amazon and Apple TV. We're here with Rachel Ramsey, who's a director, James Erskine, another director of the documentary, as well as Carol Wilson, who is a team captain of the 1971 games she played for England. We were talking about the history a little bit, and I want to talk about how the event actually happened because, James, despite all the mockery that we heard before the break, there was one group of businessmen that were really keen on making this World cup happen. And they pulled a lot of strings. The partnerships they had filled big stadiums, big media campaigns. Who are these men? What was in it for them?

James Erskine (17:51)

Well, I mean, Mexico City in the late 60s, early 70s was hopping it was all happening. The Olympics came to Mexico City in 1968, and they built this fantastic stadium called the Azteca Stadium. And they had a fantastic Olympics there. And then they also had the 1970 Men's Soccer World cup there, which is famous for Brazil winning it for the third time in Pele. And this magical football and also being in color being broadcast around the world. The Olympics is broadcast, and suddenly there's a lot of excitement. And it was the guys that owned that stadium and owned the television stations. Basically, they were like, we've got this big Stadium, we're having all these events. Everybody wants to come watch them. What can we put on next? And then they heard about this thing called women's football. And there had been a tournament organized by Martini Rossi, the drinks brand in Italy, in Turin in 1970. So they flew over there and said, you guys did this in a small way. We're gonna do it in a big way. You know, would you want to partner with us? And because they controlled television and because they controlled newspapers at the time in the country, they were able to offer a promotional support so that even when FIFA stepped in and said, you can't do this tournament, they said, we don't care because it's our stadium. So we're put on the show. And they put on the show.

Kusha Navadar (19:03)

Interesting. And, you know, when we talk about the show that they put on, there's a text that just came through that I think is super interesting as well. It says, this is a lovely discussion, but I can't help but notice the absence of African or Caribbean players. Were they present in Mexico 47 years ago? Rachel, what do you think?

Rachel Ramsey (19:19)

I mean, the teams that were playing at the time, none of them had official national teams. So the people that were getting. The teams that are getting themselves over to Mexico had to be coming from the grassroots of where they were playing soccer and where they were playing football. And I think it was really focused in Europe at the time. You know, there was also nothing from the US but the. I think the European tradition of soccer was very strong before the 70s in that time. And I think that's probably where those teams are coming from.

James Erskine (19:52)

Women's football was still banned in Brazil until the 1986. It was a criminal offense. So, of course there wasn't going to be a team from Brazil, sadly.

Kusha Navadar (20:00)

Yeah. And you know, Carol, I want to bring this back to you to bring it to the ground level of what it was like, because once you arrived in Mexico, that atmosphere of excitement, of trepidation and thrill, that's really portrayed well in the film. And I want to play a clip that highlights just how you were feeling here it is to go somewhere like that.

Rachel Ramsey (20:21)

And for ordinary working class girls, it was a dream.

Carol Wilson (20:29)

Got to Mexico and they pull a ladder up and the doors open and.

Rachel Ramsey (20:34)

All these flashlights went off.

Carol Wilson (20:38)

Just light, light everywhere. You couldn't see. And I said, there's someone famous on this plane.

Rachel Ramsey (20:50)

But it was a house.

Kusha Navadar (20:53)

Carol, we hear you in the clip. And that was them getting off the plane. How did that excitement feel in your. Your body? Like, what Sounds, what sights, what smells do you remember from that time?

Carol Wilson (21:08)

I just remember the. The smell of the. The heat once the doors opened and it was like Beatlemania is. The only way I can describe was we thought, wow, we were stunned. I've got to be honest. We were stunned on steps. We still didn't think it was for us. We thought it was. We really did think it was for some celebrity on the aircraft. So it wasn't until we got into the. The airport that we realized there was a whole press entourage there waiting for us and we had to go through interviews and so on in the airport before we could leave. So, yeah, it was just. We couldn't. We'd gone from having six men and their dogs watching us on. On the pitch that was so uneven, there was, like, potholes everywhere, to going to play in front of nearly 100,000 with, you know, flat pitch. We just couldn't believe it.

Kusha Navadar (22:25)

How did that affect the team dynamic, having all that attention?

Carol Wilson (22:31)

Well, it didn't, fortunately. I think there were young kids and do a. Mainly young kids, rather. There was a couple of US either approaching 20 or over 20, but the younger ones, they were extremely focused. Extremely focused because all they wanted to do. Well, I mean, myself included and the others, all we wanted to do was play football. We weren't really in. I mean, it was spectacular, don't get me wrong. All this press interest and having a photographer assigned and police cars and police motorcyclists front and back. So it was quite strange. It was like being. I've said it before, it was like being thrust into a parallel universe.

Kusha Navadar (23:28)

Yeah. You know, I'm thinking of your reference to the focus on the team and I'm thinking of the games that you played. And there's one specifically that one match with Mexico that was the. For the group A seed, and you were playing against the home team on their home turf. How did that match feel for you before you started? How did you get morale?

Carol Wilson (23:48)

That was the match. Yeah, that was the match that I liked the most. And I'm sure if you spoke to the girls, they'll say that too. We had a fantastic reception from the Mexican people. I mean, amazing. They were. They were really great. And I mean, yes, it was really frightening going on to that. Going out onto that pitch from the tunnel, I didn't think I was going to make the track. My legs were like jelly. But of course, we went out and once we were on the field, once we were on the park, it was absolutely fine and we tried. The girls gave 110, 120% in that match. And I'm sure if we'd had the support that we ought to have had before we left England, then we would have been a lot more prepared for the games is all I can say. But, you know, it was what it was and we thoroughly enjoyed the game event against Mexico. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Kusha Navadar (24:55)

Yeah.

Carol Wilson (24:55)

And we played our hearts out. We. We lost to a better team and we enjoyed the match is all I can say. You know, it was amazing.

Kusha Navadar (25:05)

And the film takes us to the final tournament, which ended up being Mexico versus Denmark. And James, the film says that this game almost never happened. James, can you explain why?

James Erskine (25:14)

Yeah, I mean, the reason why it never happened was because throughout this tournament, obviously lots of money had been made for the promoters. None of that money was shared with the women who played in there. And the Mexican women were upset about this and they decided that they would basically go on strike, you know, and not play the game because they were. They felt conned, you know, and they felt disappointed, you know, in the end they were persuaded otherwise and that national spirit was more important and the promise of money down the line, which was never fulfilled, was a motivator. But, yeah, they were, you know, they were. It was. Even in the spectacular situation, they were not treated fairly or correctly.

Kusha Navadar (25:58)

And, you know, from here, the film does take a bit of a somber turn because especially after the tournament when athletes return home and after several weeks of camaraderie, like we hear Carol talking about and you talking about as well, there's buzz around the Women's World cup, but they return to an entirely different reality. And we have a clip of that. I want to listen to it. Here's that clip.

Carol Wilson (26:17)

We arrived at the airport and I can't remember seeing one photographer there.

James Erskine (26:24)

Nobody.

Rachel Ramsey (26:24)

There to meet you, no bunches of.

Carol Wilson (26:26)

Flowers, no invitations to parties, nobody really.

Rachel Ramsey (26:31)

Wanting to know you. It was less than the one man and his dog who used to turn out and play and see us play on a Sundays.

Carol Wilson (26:41)

And then we found out we got banned because we got banned inside ourselves. We were shutting down. We never spoke about it. Never spoke about it.

Kusha Navadar (26:52)

Rachel, can you take us through that moment? When the women's team returned to the uk, how were they treated?

Rachel Ramsey (26:59)

Well, as you hear the players say then, as Chris said, is that they were treated like they'd done something wrong, like they'd overstepped. There's this idea they should have been kept in the box that the male establishment could control. And if they didn't do that, for example, going and playing in front of 100,000 people in Mexico than they, you know, that they were, they were there to be punished for it. It's about this kind of idea of being punished for your success. And that is such a grim concept. But it is something I think that, you know, a lot of people relate to in different ways. And we say like this, this is a film, this is a sports film. It's film about soccer, but really it's about far more than that. It's about what happens when your right to self expression is taken away from you. And I think what. So what we've done in the film and what these, what the women are able to express, and it didn't just happen in England as well, it happened in Denmark, it happened in Mexico. You know, everyone is that okay, you went so far. But actually we're going to make sure that, you know, you can't go any further. And we're going to go further than that and actually take it away from you. And that is something that we wanted, you know, the audience to really be able to feel and to go on that journey throughout the whole, the whole of the film.

Kusha Navadar (28:06)

Did FIFA or any football federation ever issue an apology? I mean, the first official Women's World cup happened far after that in 1991. But has anything.

Rachel Ramsey (28:15)

I have one word for that.

Carol Wilson (28:16)

No.

Kusha Navadar (28:17)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rachel Ramsey (28:18)

And still no.

Kusha Navadar (28:20)

You know, Carol, the film shows you at Wembley Stadium at a women's match last year. What was it like watching the new generation of female athletes on a field in your home country?

Carol Wilson (28:30)

Oh, it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. I mean, just to be there when that happened. I mean, my feet were off the ground most of the time. It was just super is all I can say. The only thing I did think about later was, it is great, it's fantastic, and I'm so happy for the girls, but this should have happened 40 years ago. Yeah.

Kusha Navadar (29:02)

And you know, James, last question to you. Towards the end of the film, we see Alex Morgan, Brandi Chastain, other American soccer players reflecting on this forgotten history. Some of them saying, I didn't know about it, even up until this point. Why was it important to include their voices?

James Erskine (29:16)

I think what we really wanted to show is that even, even the people that are most famous for this sport today, you know, didn't know about this. That this is a surprise that they're being given that we were. The film is about history and it's about role models and that people grew up without role models, you know, and that they've become role models, but to understand the deeper roots is how something stays around forever.

Kusha Navadar (29:39)

Yeah, I'm happy that this history is now can stay around forever. The documentary is Copa71. It's about the largely repressed and forgotten Women's World cup tournament in 1971. It's opening tomorrow at IFC Center. You can also catch it streaming on Amazon and Apple TV. Directors Rachel Ramsey James Erskine, former captain of the 1971 Women's World cup for the England team Carol Wilson thanks all three of you for for being a part of this history and bringing it to us.

James Erskine (30:06)

Thank you so much having us them.

Carol Wilson (30:08)

You're very welcome.

Rachel Ramsey (30:13)

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