The team, one of the first women's football clubs, had as its patron Lady Florence Dixie, an aristocrat from Dumfries, and its first captain was Nettie Honeyball (real name likely Mary Hutson).

[1] The club's first public match took place at Crouch End, London on 23 March 1895, between teams representing 'The North' and 'The South'.

[7] On 16 May[6][7] the teams played in Glasgow to a crowd of more than 5,000, a match abandoned after a violent pitch invasion during which the women were "roughly jostled", and chased by a mob as they left the grounds.

[7] Further games resulted in similar pitch invasions, which soon ended this early attempt to introduce women's football.

[15] The club divided into a north and south team and on 23 March 1895, 10,000[notes 1] spectators watched the inaugural game at Alexandra Park, Crouch End, London.

This kit was called Rational Dress after the movement opposing tight corsets, high heels, and unwieldy skirts.

[15] The tour attracted great publicity from the press, though not entirely restricted to the sport as, at the time, women playing football was intricately linked to the 'Rights question'.

[8] In a year when the cultural, social and public concern over what was decent and what was unnatural were already focused,[notes 2] football for women raised important issues within Victorian society, including dress reform, the feminine ideal, women's sexuality, and the rigid British class structure in a way that no other sport could.

She, therefore, saw football as a weapon of subversion and a means of pushing the boundaries, since the members of the club played openly in knickers and blouses.