The Football Association resolved on 5 December 1921 to ban women's football from its affiliated grounds; Parr continued playing in defiance for decades.
On 5 December 1921, the Football Association passed a resolution effectively banning women's football from being played on the grounds of any club affiliated with the FA. The FA's stated rationale claimed the game was 'quite unsuitable for females' and should not be encouraged, though many historians view the ban as motivated by the threat women's football posed to the men's professional game's popularity and finances.
This ban had a devastating structural effect on women's football in England, forcing teams like Dick, Kerr Ladies — for whom Lily Parr played as a star forward — to find alternative pitches, often rugby grounds or public parks, and to tour abroad in France, the United States, and Canada to continue competing at a high level.
Parr, already established as the most brilliant female player in the world, refused to be sidelined by the ban. She continued playing for Dick, Kerr Ladies (later St Helens Ladies and Preston Ladies) for nearly three more decades, helping keep the women's game alive against official opposition. Her defiance during this period is considered a crucial act of resistance that preserved organised women's football in Britain through its darkest institutional era. The ban would not be lifted until 1971, nearly fifty years later, by which point Parr had already retired but lived to see the vindication of her decades of perseverance.