Last night, the Chinese women's football team triumphantly returned to China, took the China Eastern Airlines MU7118 charter flight back to Shanghai, and the reporter of this newspaper also went to Shanghai Pudong International Airport (see this newspaper report). So, when did women's football first appear in Shanghai? What is the historical origin of women's participation in football in Shanghai? Shen Sirui, a third-level researcher at the Shanghai Municipal Local History Office, made a survey and examination of the early development history of women's football in Shanghai.
In modern Times, women's participation in sports in China is closely related to the gradual study of the West and the East. Western women's sports began to emerge after the Industrial Revolution and gradually formed a system. In the mid-to-late 19th century, with the emergence of Western missionaries and church schools in China, women's sports were also introduced. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, students of some girls' church schools in Shanghai participated in intramural and inter-school sports activities. Before and after the May Fourth Movement, female athletes gradually stepped out of school and into society.
The history of women's participation in football in Shanghai dates back to the 1920s. At present, it can be known that the earlier and more formal sports school for the training of female sports professionals is the Liangjiang Girls' Sports Normal School. The school was founded in 1922 (the 11th year of the Republic of China) by Lu Lihua. The school was originally the Liangjiang Women's Sports Normal School, which was approved in 1928 and renamed the private Liangjiang Girls' Sports College. The school site was originally in Qianjili, Deng Tuo Road (now Dantu Road) in Hongkou District, and a house was rented as a school building. The purpose of the school is to devote itself to the liberation of Chinese women, strengthen women's physique, train female sports teachers, and train the backbone of women's sports in China.
Shen Kunnan, who was also a physical education teacher at the school (who was also the director of physical education at Jinan University), compiled the British published "Women's Football Rules" into a book "Women's Football" during the winter vacation of February 1926, which wrote:
In the Tang and Song dynasties of the mainland, there were games similar to women's football, regretting the age, advocating lack of people, causing drifting, women in recent European and Western countries, multi-organization of football teams, playing with people, especially the United Kingdom and the United States as the most popular, covering their rules, completely different from men, not without the risk of harming physiology...
On February 23, 1926, the "Declaration" published the news that the Liangjiang Women's Sports Teacher had compiled and published "Women's Football"
Shen Kunnan suggested that the school include football in the teaching content of physical education, and advocated the establishment of a women's sports football team, which often competes with the East Asian sports team men's football team.
The reporter checked the information and found that the "First Women's Football Team in Modern Mainland China" (authors: Wu Zhiming and Wu Jian) published in the 1985 issue of the "History of Sports Literature and History" magazine pointed out that the first women's football team in the mainland was founded in 1924 by the Private Liangjiang Women's Sports College in Shanghai.
Group photo of the women's soccer team of the Liangjiang Women's Sports College published in the Picture Times in 1926
Liangjiang Girls' Sports College has been relocated 10 times. In 1923, it was moved to Lüban Road (Chongqing South Road), the following year, because of the Jiangsu and Zhejiang warlord wars, it was moved to Kang ti Road (now Jianguo West Road), in 1925 it was moved to the old Ximen Fang Xie Road, adjacent to the Municipal Public Stadium (the predecessor of Hunan Stadium), the following year moved to Ma Sinan Road (now Sinan Road), in 1927 moved back to the old Ximen Fang Xie Road, in 1929 in the old Ximen Daji Road South (now Dalin Road) to build a teaching building, to 1930 in Jiangwan Xiangyin Road (now Handan Road) to buy land and build a house, built basketball, volleyball, Softball and other special venues have opened up a 400-meter track track and field field, and also built a 25-meter × 10-meter swimming pool, as well as auditoriums, gymnasiums, dormitories, classrooms, piano training rooms and other buildings. However, it was destroyed by war in the January 28 Incident in 1932. The following year, the school building was repaired until 1937, when it was forced to close due to the Japanese occupation of the school.
According to the "Declaration" on June 12, 1926, at the East China Open Games that opened on June 11, liangjiang women's sports normal school (renamed the private Liangjiang women's sports college in 1928) arranged a football exhibition game, which is the earliest public report record of women's football competitions in Shanghai.
On June 12, 1926, the "Declaration" Far East Open Games Liangjiang Women's Sports Normal Football Exhibition Tournament
After the 1930s, women's football in Shanghai was not promoted, and although there were some sporadic matches, they were not large-scale.
In 1979, Putuo, Yangpu and other districts began to establish women's football teams. In 1981, Chuansha County established a women's football team, and the following year represented Shanghai in the first national women's football invitational tournament. On December 15, 1983, the Chinese women's football team was officially established. In May 1984, the Shanghai Women's Football Team was established.