Why Nettie
Nettie Honeyball founded the British Ladies' Football Club in 1894.
She organised the first women's football match in England. Recruited 30 players. Trained them in secret. Put them in front of 10,000 people at Crouch End Athletic Ground in North London.
Before women had the right to vote.
She was written out of football history almost immediately. The clubs disbanded. The FA banned women from playing on Football League grounds in 1921. The ban lasted 50 years.
We named this platform after her.
Not as a footnote. Because it is still happening.
Thousands of grassroots women's sport clubs play every weekend in England — football, rugby, netball, basketball, handball, rugby league, and more. Most play in front of almost nobody — not because people do not want to watch, but because there is no way to find them.
Nobody has built the infrastructure to make women's sport visible. Until now.
I play tight-head prop in women's rugby. I spent twelve years inside the NHS watching social prescribing budgets disappear into community activities with no way of knowing if anyone showed up.
The same gap. Both ends of it.
Nettie builds the infrastructure Nettie Honeyball never had.
Nic Vovk, Founder
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Women's sport has always existed. Nettie makes sure it's seen.