LEWES FC Women play Charlton Athletic Women on Sunday and the club is trying to set a world record for Suffragettes at a football match at this game.

The event has been organised to mark the end of the club’s “Unlock the Gate” campaign, which celebrated the Centenary of Suffrage and aimed to encourage more people to come to the team’s matches in solidarity with the club’s equality initiative.

The initiative closed the gender pay gap at the club by offering equal pay to the men’s and women’s team. Since Equality FC was introduced in 2017 there has been a significant rise in attendances at women’s home matches.

Lewes FC Women recorded their highest ever attendance at last Sunday’s game against Manchester United.

Nearly 2,000 spectators attended the match where Helen Pankhurst, the Great Grand-daughter of Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, addressed the crowd. In general, attendances at home matches have risen from an average of 120 to an average of 450 as the club has reached out to women’s groups to inform them about Lewes’ pioneering stance on equality.

Lewes is a 100 per cent community-owned and not-for-profit football club.

The club has been working in the community to inform various groups about the ban on women’s football, which lasted from 1921- 1971, and why it is important to support the women’s game.

Lewes FC is asking spectators to come to the match against Charlton dressed in suffrage costume to celebrate and honour the great women and men who struggled to make life fairer for all in 1918.

It aims to set the World Record for the number of Suffragettes at a football match.

Brighton and Hove Buses, who have sponsored the campaign, are sending a Suffragette-laden Diversity Bus along to The Dripping Pan for the game.

The first ten people through the turnstiles in Suffrage costume will have a free glass of bubbly waiting for them at the Rook Inn, and there will be prizes, donated by Waitrose, for the best costumes.