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FourFourTwo
FourFourTwo
Sport
Matthew Ketchell

Bella Reay was a war-time football heroine with a ratio of 4.33 goals per game who could’ve inspired millions had politics not got in the way

Football FA the first world war
World War One. The stands of a football ground have been turned into a workshop making gas masks helmets and other protective equipment. July 1916. Inset picture: Blyth Spartans Ladies striker Bella Reay.

In 1916 conscription saw hundreds of thousands of British men leave the country and head into battle. But from this emerged a tale that would have Joey Barton reeling.

The knock-on impact of thousands of men leaving their homes and towns was women flooding into munitions factories and dockyards to plug the gap left by conscripted men and maintain the momentum of the war effort on home soil. 

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