The Making History Everyday campaign, launched during Black History Month 2023, is our pledge to champion Black game-changers in the Chelsea community throughout the entire year.

For this month’s instalment, the campaign celebrates Geraldine Makarab, one of the first Black women to play for Chelsea, alongside Catarina Macario, who leads the charge for Chelsea Women today.

They are two players from very different eras of Chelsea women’s football, and indeed women’s football in general, but some similarities in their stories are there for all to see.

Geraldine was part of the first incarnation of a female Blues team in the 1970s, not long after a 50-year FA ban on women playing the sport in an organised form was lifted.

Catarina, who played college soccer in the USA before moving to Europe’s professional game, has just begun her Chelsea career, and has made an instant impact with two goals in her first two substitute appearances.

Diversity through the decades

While the Chelsea of the current decade appear in some of the biggest stadiums in the world in front of huge audiences, Geraldine’s Chelsea played on the parks of London and the surrounding counties – but one parallel they can both see between their eras is the demographic of their football environment.

‘I played for Chelsea Ladies for about five or six years,’ Geraldine recalls. ‘We played in cup matches, league matches, and there was great camaraderie.

‘The team was very diverse. That was one of the things that was so great about Chelsea Ladies. We had different ethnicities, races, cultures, religions. It was a really, really diverse team and that helped, because if you see others in the team who are like yourself, it gives you confidence to play. It gives you more confidence if you've got a network.

‘Our diversity was really one of our strengths as a team, and everybody gelled together really well,’ she continues.

‘Our home ground was in Hackney, a place which has always been very diverse. When we used to go away to cup matches in the home counties, we were known as the United Nations team. You can take that both ways, but this is where identity comes into it.

‘If you've got a strong sense of your own identity and the collective identity with your fellow players, that helps because you can laugh it off. I don't think any of us were really bothered. You're too busy playing the game, enjoying it and pursuing your goals.

‘The abiding memory I have of Chelsea Ladies is that even though the team was very diverse, everybody made a conscious effort to work together. You'll always have ups and downs, but as a collective we unified well, which is important for a team.’

Catarina, looking at the present-day Chelsea and a campaign like Making History Everyday, declares: ‘Chelsea is so diverse. That's something I love about it: we have so many cultures and we're able to celebrate that.

‘There’s space for everyone. That's a beautiful thing. That's what makes Chelsea, Chelsea. The Pride of London. Whenever I think of diversity, I think about how we have people from everywhere, and they're able to express themselves in whatever way they want and be their true, most authentic selves. It's important to celebrate that, our diversity and what makes us, us.

‘I feel like there's a piece of the world in this club,’ she adds. ‘We have nationalities and ethnicities, people from different backgrounds, and every single day you get to learn a little more of what makes this person who they are and what makes them so great.

‘That not only reflects the identity of the team, but the club as a whole. It speaks to the beauty of the world and the diversity of it, and you learn something each day. I'm very proud and happy at the fact that we have so much diversity here.’

The start of the story

The early Chelsea Ladies team that Geraldine was a part of had Black players several years earlier than the men’s team. As one of the first Black women to play for Chelsea, paving the way for young Black women in football in general, Geraldine considers who was her biggest inspiration growing up. Away from sport, she names Maya Angelou, the American writer and activist, as one of her heroes (‘she was amazing’) but within football, there were not many female role models at that time.

‘Hope Powell [the former England international player and manager] has been one of my favourites, because she's done so much for the game,’ she adds, ‘but I suppose at that time, when I was playing, I was looking at male players, so it'd be international teams like Brazil with Pele.’

Brazil is where Catarina was born before moving to the United States at an early age and becoming an international footballer for her adopted country. A major step forward came at Stanford, the renowned university. She considers that to be her greatest achievement.

‘I’ve played football my whole life, but I feel like graduating from Stanford is something I did for myself; something I did for Cat the person versus Cat the player.

‘It's a tremendous school for both and has the best of both worlds. I'm really proud of the fact that I arrived in the United States at the age of 12 not knowing any English, and I was able to become fluent enough that I could go to this super-prestigious university, which has helped me become the person that I am today.

‘I was able to learn a lot, and it was something that I did just for myself. Outside of football, that's the one thing that I'm really proud of.’

Geraldine too looks back to her early years. Football for her started at six years of age when she and her sister played in the back garden at their home.

‘I would be in goal and she would be practising her shooting skills, then we used to finish with a mini-match. It just progressed from there.

‘Once we went to primary school we fell in love with the game because we played a lot together. We played with the boys there and continued into secondary school. When I started work, we still continued to play with some of the boys, and then we saw an ad in the newspaper.

‘They were recruiting for players and we found out it was Chelsea Ladies. At that time there were no local teams for girls or women to play football so we thought this would be a great idea, and my sister and I joined. It went really well – we met others in the team and really liked it.

‘It was our first passion and we loved the game. We were just so excited that we could play, especially on a full-size pitch with proper nets and goalposts. It felt like you were playing the real game. It blossomed from there.

‘We had a manager who selected teams on match day, but we never had a full-time football coach so everybody in Chelsea helped out, supported each other like a sisterhood. It was great. We muddled through, like you did in those days, for the joy of playing and the freedom to be yourself as women or young girls, who can play football in spite of all the other things that were going on. That was liberating – it makes you feel “wow”.

The way forward

‘Things are changing now,’ Geraldine acknowledges, ‘with the way women's team sports are on the rise. There's a lot more funding at the grassroots level too. You can now access football in schools – in our day that just wasn't possible. It’s so much more structured and there's more local clubs that are accessible for young girls.

‘Equally, you've got the academies, reserve teams, senior teams, you can see this progression as a clear pathway, and there's other pathways in the industry for women now too, even if you don't succeed as a player.’

Geraldine’s early motivation to become involved in football has led to her having a lifelong involvement in sport. She is a licensed tennis coach, plays golf, and is very active generally. That she says is her greatest achievement.

‘Now I’m passing on things to the next generation. Coaches have an influence and create a positive experience. It's not just about winning, it's about how you win, your attitude. These are life skills, not just teaching young people technique but also how to deal with adversity.’

There is importance also in young Black women and girls seeing role models who look like them excelling in football.

‘They can see themselves in the past, present and future, because they will be the future,’ declares Geraldine.

‘If somebody enters a team, and there aren't many people from the same culture, sometimes that can be an unspoken barrier that can hold people back. It's really important for people of colour to be confident in your own identity. Identity is very important because if you lack self-confidence in your own identity, that can prevent you from excelling in a team game. It's a weird thing to say because you might think there's a team, but you are different, bring your special gifts.

‘A campaign like Making History Everyday is important as it shows the history and legacy; you can see the past and present of the club. This month, it highlights the fact that women have been playing football throughout history, going back to the war time, and it's showing you that there's an opportunity for the future.’

Catarina and Geraldine both finish with a word of advice to any young Black women and girls who want to get into football, or are curious about it, with our current striker going first.

‘Always be yourself. Embrace your identity and never give up. Just keep working hard and pushing through and believe in yourself above everything else,’ she recommends.

‘Join - because that's the first step,’ adds Geraldine. ‘Participate, evolve, see, and then the sky's the limit.

‘Even if they don't succeed in playing the game at the higher levels, now is the time you can go into so many other aspects to support women’s football: media, marketing, coaching etc. It's not the end of the world even if you don't make it to the top. The opportunities are there, which weren’t there before; it's not just playing the game.’