In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Southampton Women's Football Club’s victory in the inaugural Women’s FA Cup in 1971, Since 71 have teamed up with us and Kit & Bone to launch a limited-edition football shirt, including a newly designed crest.

Despite huge success in the United Kingdom during the First World War, in 1921, The Football Association (FA) banned women's football in the country.

In December 1969, the FA wrote to the Women’s Football Association (WFA) to confirm its intentions of overturning the ban.

Seventy-One teams then set out to compete for the inaugural Women’s FA Cup in 1970-71. On 09/05/1971 at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre, Southampton Women, coached by Norman Holloway, took on the Scottish side, Stewarton Thistle.

The south-coast based club came away 4-1 winners, thanks to goals from Pat Davies (3) and Dot Cassell.

It was important that the club itself supported the project and like Matt, the club’s manager, Aaron Smith, loved the idea and wanted the club to be heavily involved.

He said, “We have a proud history at this club and I feel privileged to work with Since-71 and Kit & Bone for this project to celebrate the first Women's FA Cup final.

“For me, the most important part of this is that we are going to use any profits that we make at the club to invest back into helping females play football in the Hampshire area.”

On December 5th the club will wear the shirt during their National League game against AFC Bournemouth. This is apt as it is the same day as the postponed 2020/21 Women’s FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea which is the fiftieth final.

Kit & Bone Founder, Matt Pascoe, says, “It’s an honour to be part of the competition’s 50th anniversary celebrations. To have the chance of retelling the story of that very first cup winning shirt through our design is exactly what Kit & Bone is all about and we can’t wait to see the shirt being worn on the pitch.”

The shirts will be available to pre-order at https://since-71.com from Sunday.