WOMEN'S soccer gained a welcome boost with national TV coverage of their World Cup which was won, amazingly, by the United States but some Rutland women had considerably less coverage when they decided to stage a tournament in July 1946.

Three teams took part but nobody can seem to remember who won, which is hardly surprising when you consider that most of the players, if not deceased, are now in their 80s.

"All I know is that I scored a few goals, all of which my brother Tommy described as being offside," said Jeanne Slyfield, nee Coggan. "We wouldn't have known anything about the offside law and I doubt whether my brother understood it either. All I knew was that we enjoyed scoring goals."

Mrs Slyfield, now 84, played inside left for the Cottesmore Commandos who played Oakham Ladies and a team from Greetham in the triangular tournament which is believed to have been conceived to raise cash for post-war charities. She returned to Oakham two years ago to live in Westfield Avenue with her daughter Jacqueline Hibbins after spending 57 years in Auckland, New Zealand. Brother Tommy lives on Heath Drive, Cottesmore.

Another plucky Commandos player was 78-year-old Margaret Haynes, nee Hallam, who lives with husband Frank on Westland Road, Cottesmore. "I was naught but skin and bone in those days so they put me on the wing," she said. "I wore my brother-in-law George Dracup's boots and our home ground was a field behind the old police house. We had great fun but I can't remember who won or who scored the goals."

Women's football nationally had taken off during the First World War and continued to thrive in the Twenties when a team called Dick Kerr's Ladies regularly drew 10,000 crowds for charity matches. The Rutland games were not on the same scale but still attracted an enthusiastic audience.

A Rutland and Stamford Mercury photograph of July 12 1946 supplied by Mr and Mrs Haynes shows the complete Oakham and Cottesmore teams, accompanied by the caption "The girls of Rutland are not content that the sterner sex should have a monopoly and have a number of football teams of their own" and includes three members of the Fountain family playing for Cottesmore alongside young Margaret Hallam and her sister Audrey in a team trained by a Mr W. Lowe.

The Oakham Ladies' photo also features several dashing young ladies, including assured inside-right Miss L Bellamy, who appears to be wearing a head scarf; an attractive Miss V Molyneux, with beautiful hair at full stretch in the wind; and Beatrice Smith, the mother of Oakham heating engineer Kevin O'Brien, who appears to have been a nimble centre-forward. "Beaty", formerly of John Street, Oakham, died 18 months ago, aged 76. "She really enjoyed her football," said Kevin. "All the girls got on well."

Those mentioned on the photos were Oakham – J Hughes, V Molyneux, S Clark, G Earp, M Townsend, E Bell, F M Halliday, L Bellamy, B Smith, K Dolby and R Parsons. Cottesmore – Margaret Hallam, Gladys Stokes, Brenda Smith, Edna Fountain, May Machon (sic), Doreen Chamberlain, Mary Smith, Dorothy Fountain, Margaret Francis, Jeanne Coggan and Audrey Hallam.

The 1946 Greetham squad is not specified but a photograph of the team that represented the village around 1950 is a prize possession of Mrs Jessie Evison of Church Lane, Greetham, who played up front in a charity match against Corahs' Girls of Oakham.

"We played at a ground near Parkfield Road," she recalled. "The game was a one-off to help Brian Evison, who was my husband Ted's brother and played for Greetham FC along with their other brothers Derek and Bill. Brian had broken his leg in a match and we decided to form a women's team to raise money for him while he was off work."

Apart from Jessie the team comprised Shirley Evison, Mary Easson, June Sharp, Yvonne Smith, Ann Clifton, Margaret Townend, Mona Walters, Edie Dalby, Margaret Evison and Margaret Croson.

Jessie, now 82, worked at Corahs for 25 years. She married Ted in 1949 and was widowed 16 years ago. These days she enjoys the occasional game of bowls but still has happy memories of the glory days of Greetham FC when the Evison brothers were the backbone of the club. "Ted was associated with the club for 40 years," she said. "The team won several trophies and quite often two busloads of supporters would accompany them on away games."

As for the women's match, she can't remember the score or how much money it raised but does recall missing an open goal. "I just fell down laughing. We wore borrowed shirts and borrowed boots and had a whole lot of fun!"

Let us know if you have memories, photographs or other details of these great games.