Let them play!!!!!

How wonderful it is to discover this, thanks to directors Rachel Ramsay and James Erskine and many of the players who took part in this historic and, until now, largely ignored and brushed under the carpet, forgotten piece of incredible sports history.

This is a massively entertaining and informative documentary about the 1971 Women’s World Cup that took place in Mexico City and Guadalajara, two of its biggest stadiums and drawing crowds of 110,000 attendees and shows how deep the ignorance, systemic sexism and general fear shown by the male football governing bodies goes.

We are so fortunate that so much footage of the competition still exists and Ramsay and Erskine do a tremendous job intertwining the brilliant interviews of the players now and then with photographs and film of the tournament from 1971.

Susanne Augustessen playing for Denmark at Copa 71

What a travesty that it had been lost but how lucky we are that these directors have brought this to the attention of the public in 2024, at a time when Women’s football is at its most popular.

Bring on these lost stories so we may learn about our history and hopefully not make the same mistakes again.
Shame on you male dominated football organisations, may your attitudes be buried along with the dinosaurs. You are not welcome here.

Check out this fabulous documentary.