The Terraces
The ink — every line and halftone dot holds at full size

The Dick, Kerr Ladies

The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920

A government minister starts the women’s international — the establishment, present and approving.

Work
glass plate negative, Agence Rol, 31 October 1920
Maker
Agence Rol
Date
1920
Ground
Stade Pershing, Paris
Era
The interwar game · 1919–1930
Source
Agence Rol / Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1920 · Wikimedia Commons
The establishment showed up. Then, deliberately, it left.

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

A French minister of state gives the kick-off for the women’s international at the Stade Pershing on the 31st of October, 1920. The detail that matters is the ceremony: this is the same official apparatus that turned out for men’s internationals, applied without irony to a women’s match, and photographed by a national news agency. Thirteen months later the English authorities would declare the game “quite unsuitable for females” and remove it from every ground they controlled. Both things are documented. Only one of them is remembered. The establishment showed up. Then, deliberately, it left.

See it on your wall

The piece, in the room it was made for

The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920, printed large and framed — in the den, the club bar, the supporters’ bar. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920 framed on the wall
The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920 framed on the wall
The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920 framed on the wall
The Kick-Off, Paris, 31 October 1920 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A reproduction of glass plate negative, Agence Rol, 31 October 1920 — Agence Rol, 1920 — from the copy held by Agence Rol / Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1920 · Wikimedia Commons. The source. The work was published before 1931 and is public-domain verified.
  • Printed faithful to that source scan — restore honestly, disclose always. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the piece you receive is the image as it survives, halftone grain honored as history, not damage.
  • Printed to order on museum-grade cotton-rag stock with pigment inks — the pairing is rated 100+ years.
  • Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the period’s, not ours.
  • Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed editions ship flat-packed).
  • If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our pieces cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the maker’s hand is visible — the linework, the halftone grain, the lettering — on materials made to outlast their owner.

Complete the set

The Ban

Paris, 31 October 1920 — the women’s international on four plates, thirteen months before England shut its grounds.

View the set →

From the same hand

The Bordeaux Ground, 1908 — glass plate negative, Agence Rol, Agence Rol, 1908

Agence Rol · 1908

The Bordeaux Ground, 1908

The earliest surviving Rol plate of the French game — a provincial ground before the crowds arrived.

Everything starts on a field with a rope round it.
Lisbon and Barcelona in Paris, Boxing Day 1920 — glass plate negative, Agence Rol, 26 December 1920, Agence Rol, 1920

Agence Rol · 1920

Lisbon and Barcelona in Paris, Boxing Day 1920

A Portuguese club against a Catalan one, in France, two days after Christmas — the game already stateless.

The rules travelled faster than anything else Britain exported.
An English Club in Paris, May 1921 — glass plate negative, Agence Rol, 15 May 1921, Agence Rol, 1921

Agence Rol · 1921

An English Club in Paris, May 1921

A London side lines up at the Bergeyre — the missionary fixture, photographed at last.

Football was taught by demonstration, on tour, in the spring.