The 37-year-old became the first female referee to take charge of a full league match in
England and hopefully will encourage others to follow in her footsteps
Harrogate is the home of cream teas, sulphur springs and now, a spot of
Football League trailblazing. After more than 200,000 league matches in England, a woman has finally officiated a full EFL game – and the handful of assessors who witnessed 37-year-old Rebecca Welch make history on a sunny Easter Monday in North Yorkshire will have been impressed.
It may be asked how it has taken football so long to get to this point, and rightly so. Although Amy Fearn took charge of the closing stages of a Championship game in 2010 as an injury replacement, Welch is the first woman appointed to referee a Football League match. What really matters is that this moment has finally arrived, and history will remember Welch as the woman who potentially encourages a further stream of female officials to follow in her footsteps and continue to drive football forward in an area in which it has, arguably, lagged behind other sports.