Carol Wilson, who played was the England captain in the tournament, was only 19 years old at the time. Three of her teammates, Leah Caleb (age 13), Gill Sayell (14) and Chris Lockwood (15) were still schoolgirls when they played in the tournament.
In the first officially sanctioned FIFA Women's World Cup, held in 1991 in China, Italy & Denmark were the only two nations out of the six who played in 1971, who qualified.
Due to scarcity of surviving footage of the finals, much of the South American 'live' broadcast commentary had to be faked in a London recording studio for this documentary by American/Costa Rican actor Jose Palma. Ironically Palma was born 18 years after the tournament took place.
The film shows (colorized) footage of professional women's soccer in England from the 1910's. This really happened as during World War 1 (1914-18) all the professional male players were called up after The Military Service Act of 1916 called up almost all single men between 18 to 41. To fill the void and to bring an air of normality to British life, amateur women's soccer teams (often drawn from factory workforce's) were allowed to be set up and play in tournaments. Probably he most famous and successful of these teams was 'Dick Kerr's Ladies' from Preston in Lancashire in England. Some of these women's matches drew surprisingly big crowds (50,000 was not unheard of) but in 1921 the English and Scottish Football Associations banned Women's teams from using facilities from their associated members in order to bring the crowds back the men's game. The ban was technically lifted in 1969 although old prejudices and attitudes remained for several years after .
Denmark striker Susanne Augustesen , who scored all three Danish goals in the final, was amazingly only 15 years old at the time. She eventually turned professional and played for several women's clubs in Italy, finally retiring in 1995 aged 39. The Danish FA did finally implement a women's national team in 1972 yet despite Augustesen's amazing feat the year before she was never called up to officially represent her country.