Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to quickly tell you about some others.

My name's Andy Martin and I'm the editor of a team of podcast producers at the BBC in Northern Ireland.

It's a job I really love because we get to tell the stories that really matter

to people here, but which also resonate and apply to listeners around the world.

And because the team is such a diverse range of skills and strengths. We have trained journalists, people who love digging through archives, we've got drama and even comedy experts. We really can do those stories justice.

So if you like this podcast, head to BBC Sounds where you'll find

plenty more fascinating stories from all around the UK. You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me

Vicky Farncombe. This is a story about when women in Brazil were banned from playing football, a law that lasted nearly 40 years.

I've been speaking to Dilma Mendez, who coached the National Women's Seven Aside Team

after the ban was lifted.

Like many young children growing up in Brazil

in the 1960s and 70s,

Dilma Mendez had one dream.

To play from my country.

I saw the matches of the Brazilian team. The players standing in a line, listening

to the national anthem. All of us Brazilians proud. I had that dream. There was just one problem.

It was illegal for women in Brazil to play football at the time,

a law that had come into force in 1941.

One of Dilma's earliest memories is being chased by the police near her home in Kamissari in Bahia in northeast Brazil.

I've been here on Brazil. I saw that car, that white car with the blue

tribes coming. The first times they came with their lamps on and the siren making a big noise and so that

helped me a lot because from afar I knew I was in danger so I ran but then they

...