"The round, Austrian goalkeeper made a bad mistake", wrote the Swiss magazine after the first women's international match in 1970. Trudy Streit and Ursula Moser played in the 9:0 win against Austria.
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- A Women's European Championship in Switzerland? "It was unimaginable back then," says football pioneer Trudy Streit, telling blue Sport vividly about Switzerland's first women's international match in November 1970.
- She talks about the scary yellow shirts discarded by the B-juniors, the 9:0 victory against Austria and the weak opposing goalkeeper and the stupid Austrian association that fielded two foreigners.
- The "Schweizer Illustrierte" is tough: "The round, Austrian goalkeeper made two or three bad mistakes."
Before the kick-off to the home European Championship, sisters Trudy Streit (72) and Ursula Moser (76) take blue Sport on a short journey back in time to Switzerland's first women's international match in 1970.
"It was a women's game," corrects Trudy Streit, "women were always married back then, not ladies..." There were around 2,000 spectators in the Breite on November 8, "we felt a bit important," she says.
When her sister Ursula shows her the team photo from back then, she laughs and says: "Oh Uschi, we were so young and dynamic back then!" But even 55 years later, Trudy Streit is still annoyed by the outfit. "The pants were really bad. But what horrible shirts they were, those discarded B-junior shirts and then in yellow. As a woman, I was ashamed."
"The plump, Austrian turf girl (...) missed the mark"
For her sister Ursula, this is not a problem, "I didn't actually notice it at all. The only thing that mattered to me was that we could play football."
And the sisters and their teammates can do that. At least much better than the Austrians. They immediately dispatched their neighbors 9:0 on their debut. "They were too weak, especially the goalkeeper," says Trudy Streit. The "Schweizer Illustrierte" is tough: "The plump Austrian goalkeeper made two or three bad mistakes."
A 9:0 in the debut international match? Of course, that's not the best advertisement for women's football. The opponents' faux pas even less so: after the game, it emerged that the Austrians had fielded two foreigners without Austrian passports. This 9:0 was therefore not counted as an official international match.
"The Swiss federation were no more intelligent"
Trudy Streit: "That was stupid. But the Swiss federation weren't much more intelligent back then. A few months earlier, we were on our way to an unofficial international match in Milan. When our passports were checked on the train, my teammate next to me showed her Italian passport. Although she lived in Zurich, she didn't have a Swiss passport. She wasn't allowed to play."
The first official international match did not take place until May 1972: The match against France in Basel in front of 4500 spectators (!) ended 2:2, with Trudy Streit playing the second half.
