PLAYERS from one of the greatest women's football teams in history visited Preston last week for a grand tour of the National Football Museum.

The Dick Kerr Ladies team, famous in post-war days, enjoyed their trip to the museum to celebrate International Women's Day.

Former players Frances Appleby from Ashton, Joan Burke from Penwortham, and Barbara Widdows from Blackpool visited to take a look at an exhibition devoted to them.

The women-only team was formed in 1917, by workers at the Dick Kerr factory on Preston's Strand Road. In 48 years the talented team only lost 24 of their 828 matches.

Mark Bushell, marketing manager at the museum, said: "We should be talking about female footballers today in the same way that we talk about other great female athletes." In their day the ladies were so popular that the Football Association banned women's teams from their grounds -- a ban which lasted until 1970, five years after the team split up.

Mark said: "It is ironic that their story plays such a major part in the National Football Museum as the Football Association banned women from playing at FA affiliated grounds in 1921.

"They were afraid that the women's game was becoming too popular."

In the team's history, the ladies scored more than 3,500 goals and competed in Canada, the USA, and across Europe.

And at their peak they attracted 53,000 football fans to Goodison Park -- the home of Everton -- on Boxing Day 1920, for a game against St Helens.

Mark said: "The ban forced the ladies game underground and stopped the development of the sport. Qualified referees were not allowed to officiate matches involving ladies sides and the women's game stagnated."