Following a UEFA recommendation in 1972 for national associations to incorporate the women's game, the Football Association (FA) rescinded its 50-year ban on women playing at English Football League grounds.[1][2] Shortly after, Eric Worthington was tasked by the Women's Football Association (WFA) to assemble an official women's national team. England competed in its first officially recognised international match against Scotland in Greenock on 18 November 1972, 100 years to the month after the first men's international between the same two nations.[3] England overturned a two-goal deficit to defeat Scotland opponents 3–2, with Sylvia Gore scoring England's first international goal.[4] Prior to this, an English team had played a series of unofficial matches at the 1969 Coppa Europa per Nazioni, and the 1970 and 1971 editions of a "World Championships" held in Italy and Mexico respectively. None of the competitions were sanctioned by FIFA, UEFA, or national associations, and some were contested by club teams acting as de facto national teams.[5][6][7]
England have contested 474 matches against 53 different national teams. Of these teams, England have not lost to 31 of them, having earned a perfect 100% winning record against 23 of these teams. West Germany is the only team England has played at least one fixture against and never failed to beat having lost both games against them although England has beaten Germany, the team's successor following the reunification of Germany in 1990.
*Draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.
**Red border colour indicates tournament was held on home soil.***Prior to the introduction of a UEFA qualifying tournament for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup, the 1991 and 1995 UEFA Women's European Championships also served as UEFA's qualifying tournament for the first two World Cups.
*Draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.
**Red border colour indicates tournament was held on home soil.***Third place includes all tournaments where England reached the semi-finals after Euro 1993 as the third place play-offs were not played in subsequent editions of the tournament.
^From Euro 2025 onwards a new qualifying format was introduced, linked to the Women's Nations League. Teams are divided into leagues (A–C) and groups (1–5) within each league with promotion/relegation between the leagues at the end of each cycle.
^Williams, Jean (2003). A Game for Rough Girls? A History of Women's Football in Britain. London: Routledge. p. 36. ISBN 1135136149.
^Mitchell, Paul. "The first international football match". BBC.
^Croydon, Emily (7 July 2013). "Women's Euros 2013: Women's football's forgotten heroines". BBC Sport.
^Williams, Jean (2014). "2: 'Soccer matters very much, every day'". In Agergaard, Sine; Tiesler, Nina Clara (eds.). Women, Soccer and Transnational Migration. Routledge. p. 26. ISBN 978-1135939380.
^Denmark was represented by a club, that also won the tournament. Stated in Danish DR2's TV-documentary about the 1971 event of the same kind [1]
^"Da Danmark blev verdensmestre i fodbold – DRTV" – via www.dr.dk.
^"England: Women's EURO records and stats". UEFA.com.
^"England Matches - The England Women's Football Team". www.englandfootballonline.com.