Emma Clarke

Emma Clarke (1876 - unknown) was a British footballer, considered to be the first known black women's footballer in Britain.

Early life Born in Bootle, Lancashire in England, to parents William and Wilhelmina Clarke, who was also one of the earliest known black women footballers in Britain, grew up in Bootle. She worked as a confectioner's apprentice from the age of 15, and received her formative sporting education playing the game in her neighbourhood streets, in an area very close to where the suffragist Helen Graham Matthews lived. Matthews later gave her name to a team for which Clarke played at the beginning of the twentieth century, Mrs Graham's XI. a game watched by more than 10,000 people at Alexandra Park, Crouch End, London, a game that Clarke's "South" team lost 7–1.

The first record of women's teams in an organised football match had occurred on 7 May 1881, at Edinburgh's Hibernian Park in a match, billed as a Scotland v England international (though it was not a full international in the modern sense).

The following year (1896), Clarke made her debut for Mrs Graham's XI, selected as part of the team which toured Scotland that year. The ladies team were victorious 3–1, although the report at the time made it clear the feelings about the women's game at the time, describing the game as a grotesque, although conceding that "in the second half the ladies distinguished themselves".