The track suits were pink and blue and the game shirts white with red trim.

They weren't US colours.

I remember feeling, I don't know what this national team is, but it doesn't feel they're USA-ish.

I'm Jonathan Wilson and with Rob Draper.

And that was Michelle Akers, a World Cup winner in 1991 and 1999, Olympic gold medalist in 1996, talk about the hand-me-down kits been given to the US Women's National Team at their first ever fixture in 1985. So today on It Was When It Was a Football History podcast, we're going to be looking at the rise of the US women's national team to a position of dominance, but like of which I think we've never really seen in international football before either in the women's game or the men's game. So this is the first of a three-part series following on from my interview with Carly Lloyd on Tuesday. So do go back and listen to that.

If you haven't listened to Carly Lloyd, of one of the great figures of international women's football over the last 20 years. So Rob, part one today. What are we looking at and what are we going

looking at going to be looking at going forward? Yeah, we're looking at the very early days.

I'm actually starting in the 19th century,

which might surprise some people of women's football in the USA, and how it becomes this

BMOth, this sort of dominant force in the game. And in part two, we'll be looking at 99ers,

which is a really, really significant moment for women's football when USA wins the World Cup in

1999 in the USA in front of 90,000 fans.

And then we're just, we're going to finish out in part three with taking some of Carly's

career up to her peak moment in 2015 when they win the World Cup in Canada.

And of course, Carly spoke about the incidence of a 99th on hers.

That's clearly a big thing. But we're going to start before that. What's the what's the prehistory of US women's football? The 99ers are absolutely key. And I think that the turning point, not just for women's football in the USA, but for women's football. And you could argue if sport has an influence on world affairs in, you know, for women and feminism and women's sport all around the world.

But we'll get to that in the second episode.

That's why we're kind of giving a whole episode to that particular team.

I just don't think there's been football team as dominant as the USA women's team.

I think you could argue they maybe have the advantage of earlier

adopters that more women are playing the sport in bigger numbers and a better train than anywhere

else in the world. So maybe that's why they're dominant. But really between 1991 and 2019,

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