Tarken Playground has been bringing women on to the football field for decades. Recently, the site’s women’s flag football league wrapped up its 48th season in Northeast Philadelphia. Six teams competed for the championship this year, with Polonia taking the title.

In the program’s heyday, 33 teams competed across three divisions, and the championship game was held at Veterans Stadium.

“We’re a lot smaller now, but it’s still run so well,” said Terry Ryan, 49, who has been playing in the league since she was 15. “It’s been so fun. Ideally, I’d like to think that I play with the same sort of vigor that I played when I was 16 and 26 and 36 and even 46. I don’t, but I’ve learned you don’t have to play harder, you have to play smarter.”

Ryan commutes an hour in rush-hour traffic from Plumstead, PA to get to games. She’s in it for the comradery.

“It’s the people that keep me coming back,” Ryan said. “It’s strategy, it’s athleticism, it’s getting together with people you’d never talk to in your lives and end up being best friends with a lot of them.”

Kathi Muller, retired Parks & Rec director of strategic initiatives, says this dedication to the league from players and staff dates to the program’s beginning. Muller was involved with the league for 15 years as a player and referee. She even filled in to referee a championship game while 8 months pregnant for the sheer excitement of the game being held at the Vet.

Muller was always a C division player. “That means that I loved the game, and I had fun every minute that I was out there, but I was probably not one of the better athletes,” she said. “That was okay because there was space for everyone.”

Making a space on the football field where everyone could feel welcome was ahead of its time, Muller said. The league was started in 1970 to fulfill a gap in programming.

“At the time, there were very little woman’s sports leagues and programs,” Muller said. “There was diversity, inclusivity, and equity in the league that didn’t exist for women at the time. That was the beauty of it all.”

Muller emphasized that creating space for everyone and meeting people where they are were core principles of the league in its early days that have survived 48 seasons of play.

The women’s flag football league welcomes anyone to join who identifies as female and is ages 18 and up. The season runs from mid-September to late-November.