Sylvia Gore
 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Sylvia Gore | ||
| Date of birth | 1946 (age 68–69) | ||
| Place of birth | Prescot, England | ||
| Playing position | Midfielder | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| Manchester Corinthians | |||
| 1967–? | Fodens | ||
| National team‡ | |||
| 1972–? | England | ||
| Teams managed | |||
| 1982–1989 | Wales | ||
|
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. | |||
Sylvia Gore, MBE, (born 1946)[1] is an English former international football midfielder and coach. She scored the England women's national football team's first ever goal in the first official match, a 3–2 win over Scotland in Greenock.[2]
Gore's father and uncle both played football for Prescot Cables and encouraged Sylvia to take up the game. The headteacher of her school vetoed any participation in the school team but she joined Manchester Corinthians in her early teens.[3] With Corinthians Gore played in charity matches all over the world at a time when the Football Association (FA) had banned female players from its pitches. She said:[4]
| “ | It was incredible playing in those great stadiums. In one of them, in South America, 80,000 people watched us play. Although we were getting good crowds in England, it was so nice to play on proper football pitches, rather than on the rugby and recreation pitches we had at home. | ” |
In 1974 Gore helped Fodens, originally a works team from the Edwin Foden, Sons & Co. lorry manufacturing plant in Sandbach, shock Southampton in the final of the Women's FA Cup. Gore recalled:[5]
| “ | It was the first time Southampton had ever lost in a cup game in the three seasons the national cup had been in existence. We were determined to beat them. We weren't frightened of them — even though they had six international players on their side, compared to our four. It was close though, but I think we deserved our 2–1 win. | ” |
Gore was known as the Denis Law of women's football and once netted 134 goals in a season. It cost her around £2,000 to progress through a series of trials for the first England team.[6] After Gore stopped playing at the age of 35, she managed the Wales women's national football team[7] and spent many years as a voluntary girls' football coach in her native Merseyside. In 1999 she won a special achievement award at the inaugural FA Women's Football Awards.[8] A longstanding member of the FA women's committee, in 2014 Gore became the first female director at the Liverpool County Football Association.[9]
References
- ↑ Lopez 1997, p. 12
- ↑ "England Statistics". The Football Association. 3 December 2002. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
- ↑ Lopez 1997, p. 14
- ↑ Lopez 1997, p. 22
- ↑ Lopez 1997, p. 25
- ↑ Croydon, Emily (7 July 2013). "Women's Euros 2013: Women's football's forgotten heroines". British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
- ↑ Gareth Roberts (Winter 2005). "Sylvia Gore" (PDF). Knowsley.gov.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
- ↑ "F.A. WOMEN'S FOOTBALL AWARDS SPONSORED BY AXA 1998/1999". PR Newswire. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ↑ Kessel, Anna (24 October 2014). "Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation marks 30 years of progress and stutters". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
Bibliography
- Lopez, Sue (1997). Women on the Ball: A Guide to Women's Football. London, England: Scarlet Press. ISBN 1-85727-016-9.
Further reading
- Emily Croydon (7 July 2013). "Women's Euros 2013: Women's football's forgotten heroines". BBC Sport. Retrieved 7 July 2013.