It’s normal for women to play football these days. A few decades ago things were different. Today is the 40th anniversary of the women’s national team’s first official international match.
The first DFB women’s game on November 10, 1982 was not just a historic moment for German football itself. For Birgit Dahlke, née Bormann, the childhood dream of so many girls and boys came true with this game: At just 17 years old, she was the youngest national player to play in the first official international match of the German women’s national team in front of around 5,000 spectators at the Oberwerth stadium in Koblenz. The 5-1 win against Switzerland was historic in more ways than one.
Birgit Bormann: She scored 4-0 against Switzerland with her head, 1982.
She scored 4-0 against Switzerland with a header. Originally coming from athletics, she convinced above all with her speed and her flanks – just right for the outside right.
Her love of football began on the football field. In the meantime she had concentrated on athletics, but after a year in Bad-Neuenahr she went straight into the women’s national team – a rapid rise that left its mark.
The rapid ascent leaves its mark
After only eight international matches, she ended her career. But why? At that time, Birgit Dahlke did not manage to grow into these new, overwhelming structures, to live up to the expectations at such a young age and fell ill with depression. She came to a clinic and retired from professional football.
Today, 40 years after her first international match, Birgit Dahlke no longer plays soccer, but still teaches courses at MTV Köln 1850 and is still very active privately. And she will always be able to remember the first international match for the DFB women.
Let the women out
The DFB banned women’s football until 1970. Anyone who let the women out anyway risked a penalty from the DFB. Only when the pressure from the clubs increased did the Football Association lift the ban after 15 years. Nevertheless, even after the ban was lifted, it was the men in particular who believed that women’s football would not last long – as did Jupp Derwall, the men’s national coach at the time:
A fight for more recognition
Celebration of victory: The women win their first official international match, 1982
The women fought for their sport and for the recognition that they, as women, are right in this sport. That’s why winning the first official women’s international match on November 10, 1982 was like a liberating blow for then-captain Anne Trabant-Haarbach:
Even if Birgit Dahlke could not understand the dimensions of the first official international match for women at the time, she also contributed to the fact that women are now an integral part of the football field.
