BOXING DAY-SOCCER!

Every December 26, football in England experiences one of its most emblematic days. This is of course, "Boxing Day," which transforms into a celebration where the Premier League and its lower divisions are obligated to hold matches due to a British footballing tradition. For the players, it may mean an extra day of work amidst the festivities, but for the fans, it’s a day of pure joy. Bouyed from Xmas, everyone wants a good "airing"!

Statistics show that stadiums reach nearly full capacity on Boxing Day, with an astounding 97 percent attendance. It’s an occasion where family and football unite; parents and children share the unique experience of watching a live game, creating a warm and festive atmosphere that contrasts with the winter chill.

The Football Association meticulously organizes the schedule to ensure that the matchups are between geographically close teams. This makes it easier for supporters to attend without transportation hassles, keeping attendance high and ensuring that the spirit of the tradition remains alive.

There are various theories regarding the origin of Boxing Day. One theory traces back to feudal times when nobles would hand their servants boxes filled with Christmas leftovers. Another version speaks of employees receiving monetary gifts in a box the day after Christmas. 

Statistics show that football stadiums reach nearly full capacity on Boxing Day, with an astounding 97 percent attendance. It’s an occasion where family and football unite; parents and children share the unique experience of watching a live game, creating a warm and festive atmosphere that contrasts with the winter chill.

The link between football and Boxing Day has strengthened since that first match between Sheffield FC and Hallam FC in 1860, but the tradition officially began in professional football during the 1888-89 season with the inception of the Football League. Since then, it has been a marked day on the calendar of English football. 

West Brom has played the most Boxing Day matches in league history, with 107 games played to a 46W-39L-22D record. Manchester United has gained the most points on Boxing Day, with 174 points gathered on a 52W-27L-18D record across 97 Boxing Day matches. Harry Kane holds the record for the most goals scored on Boxing Day with 10, while the highest-scoring Boxing Day fixture in Premier League history was Manchester City's 6-3 win over Leicester City in 2021. The highest-scoring Boxing Day in English top-flight history happened in 1963, when an outlandish 66 goals were scored across 10 matches, marked by a bonkers 10-1 win for Fulham over Ipswich Town and an 8-2 drubbing by Blackburn Rovers over West Ham.

However, not everything is festive for the players. Former referee Howard Webb revealed that some footballers, in an effort to avoid playing on Boxing Day, would commit fouls to receive bookings and and get to the "yellow card limit". This day entails sacrifice for athletes and coaches, who must balance physical rest with match planning, often rotating players to prevent injuries and keep the squad competitive amidst the festivities. This Boxing Day we met two Everton supporters on our beach walk in Victoria, Yes Australia.

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CHRISTMAS DAY 2024 and OTHERS

The first Christmas Day (Merry Christmas, by the way) match took place in 1889. The Invincibles, Preston North End, beat Aston Villa, when Nick Ross scored 3 at Deepdale for the home team, and 10,000 or more watched.

In 1909 Partick Thistle beat Hibernian on this day in a league match, but Thistle lost defender James Main early doors, who was kicked in the stomach and suffered a ruptured bowel from which he never recovered and died.

On Christmas Day in 1917, Dick, Kerr's Ladies, The Munitionettes, played a charity game on Christmas Day at Deepdale (Preston NE) against the Arundel Coulthard's Factory. £488 was raised for charity and the Dick's Ladies won 4-0. See them below. On Boxing Day 1920, the Kerr Ladies beat St Helen's Ladies in front of 53,000, 4-0. Ladies football was here to stay.
In 1936, Hull hosted Wrexham in a Third Division South match. Ambrose Brown was sent off after 20 seconds. Some coach journey!

In 1954 Blackpool were drawn to play Portsmouth away in a league game on Christmas day which involved a 500 mile round trip. There was of course a return match in which Jimmy Armfield made his debut.

1957 was the last time that a full English Football League programme was held on Christmas Day. 38 matches were played and by 1959 public transport had been given the day off, so there was not a lot of movement in and out of stadia and league fixtures declined. People just couldn't travel.
Jimmy Greaves scored a hat trick and ONE in 1957 for Chelsea against Portsmouth in a League game, which Chelsea won 7-4.

Some clubs kept their "Christmas" holiday fixture going and recorded bumper crowds but by December 26th 1959. Blackburn played Blackpool, winning 1-0 in Division 1 in a local derby and Coventry beat Wrexham in Division 3 3-0. One day later, on Boxing Day, Blackpool beat the Rovers 1-0, to even things up.

Some clubs were scheduled to play on Boxing Day as well, but matches were postponed due to frozen pitches. (apparently)!!
December 25th 1965 saw a Lancastrian derby with Blackpool hosting Blackburn Rovers again and winning 4-2. This was the last Christmas Day match ever and over 20,000 watched this spectacle.

The Scottish League kept a full programme going until 1976 but there was a reduced programme after that. Some Scot's clubs kept going with Clydebank drawing with St Mirren and Alloa beating Cowdenbeath.

In 1983 Brentford attempted to play Wimbledon in a Third Division game on Christmas Day but there was a protest and the game was brought forward to the "Eve". There was a protest about this but over 6,600 turned out, the second highest attendance at Griffin Park that season!! Wimbledon won 3-4.

Brentford v Wimbledon

Games won:	5
Games drawn:	3
Games lost:	4

Date	Match	Result	Score	Competition
13 Dec 1975	Wimbledon v Brentford	W	0-2	FA Cup
22 Aug 1977	Brentford v Wimbledon	W	4-1	League Division Four
07 Jan 1978	Wimbledon v Brentford	D	1-1	League Division Four
22 Sep 1979	Wimbledon v Brentford	D	0-0	League Division Three
09 Feb 1980	Brentford v Wimbledon	L	0-1	League Division Three
12 Apr 1982	Wimbledon v Brentford	W	1-2	League Division Three
26 Apr 1982	Brentford v Wimbledon	L	2-3	League Division Three
30 Aug 1982	Wimbledon v Brentford	D	1-1	League Cup
14 Sep 1982	Brentford v Wimbledon	W	2-0	League Cup
10 Dec 1983	Brentford v Wimbledon	W	3-2	FA Cup
24 Dec 1983	Brentford v Wimbledon	L	3-4	League Div Three
21 Apr 1984	Wimbledon v Brentford	L	2-1	League Division Three

ST MARY'S

 24th December 1921, HAIL, ST MARY'S

An early Christmas present for Southampton - on this day in 1921, they beat Northampton Town, 8-0 in a Division 3 (South) fixture at the Dell. Four of those goals came from Bill Rawlings, who finished the season as the Saints' top scorer and won two England caps - very rare for a third tier player. His goals were to prove vital for Southampton in 1921/22. Back then only one club was promoted from that division and going into the last match of the season, on May 6th 1922, Southampton were in second spot two points behind leaders Plymouth Argyle with just two points for a win in those days. Plymouth - who had been unbeaten in their previous 16 League matches - lost 2-0 at QPR while Southampton beat Newport 5-0 to take top spot and promotion on goal average. That 8-0 victory over Northampton remained Southampton's top score in the League until they beat Wolves 9-3 in 1965 but still ranks as Southampton's biggest winning margin in the League - although it was equalled with a 8-0 victory over Sunderland in 2014. 

William Ernest Rawlings was born on 3 January 1896 at Clatford Lodge, Upper Clatford, near Andover. He was the second of four children to William and Jane (née Barlow); his father was a domestic coachman and later ran The Elephant Inn in Andover. Rawlings worked as an assistant grocer before becoming a professional footballer. Rawlings was playing for hometown club, Andover, when he enlisted to fight in World War 1 in 1914, aged 18. He served with the Wessex Field Ambulance and was awarded the 1914 star. He became a licensee in the 1930s, running the Glebe Hotel in Southampton from July 1930. He spent 25 years as a civil servant in the Admiralty, based in Wareham.

Founded in 1885 as St Mary's Y.M.A. and later known as Southampton St Mary's, they became a professional club in 1891, and co-founded the Southern League in 1894. Southampton won the Southern League championship six times between 1896 and 1904, and were later elected to the Football League in 1920, as co-founders of the Third Division. The Saints finished as runners-up in their first season, and the following year received promotion to the Second Division as Third Division champions. The club first entered the First Division in 1966, and currently play in its modern-day counterpart, the Premier League. Southampton won the FA Cup in 1976, reached the final of the League Cup in 1979 and 2017, and won the League Trophy in 2010. The Saints are presently lounging at the bottom of the Prem League.

CHRISTMAS TRADITION?

Religious Holidays and Bank Holidays have long been a time to pile on the football.

In the Victorian era, “football was played on Christmas Day because it was a day off and there was a tradition of public working-class events,” says history Professor Martin Johnes. “It was also at times played on Boxing Day meaning two games in two days.” For many working people this could be the only chance of the year to catch a game. In his book "Christmas and the British", Prof Johnes explains that Bank Holiday legislation played an important role: “The 1871 Bank Holidays Act gave Boxing day this designation in England and Wales. It had not done the same for Christmas day or Good Friday because they were established days of rest and worship,”

Even though local derbies were often scheduled for Christmas, the demanding schedule put a strain on the players with all the travelling that would have been involved. If a club misses a game today, severe penalties can be administered, but FA rules at the time stated “no club shall be compelled to play any match on Good Friday or Christmas Day”. Swindon Town’s Harold Fleming (who played from 1907 to 1924) and Sunderland’s Arthur Bridgett (1902 to 1924) were high profile England International players who refused to play on Christmas Day on religious grounds.  

As to why our Christmas football habit contrasts so much with our European neighbours, Dr Alexander Jackson, National Football Museum Curator, suggests it could be down to football being such a traditionally popular spectator sport in Britain.“It is difficult to say exactly why Christmas games are definitely not a tradition in other countries. Perhaps, the early spread of football in England, comparative to European countries, where it only became a mass spectator sport after World War One, helps explain why it became embedded in Victorian and Edwardian football culture.” German football journalist Raphael Honigstein - author of biographies of Jurgen Klopp and former Arsenal captain Per Mertesacker - says that the mystery of the difference between British and German attitudes to Christmas reminds him of a classic German joke: “There’s this guy driving on the wrong side of the highway. He’s listening to the radio and there’s an emergency announcement saying ‘please be careful there’s someone driving the wrong way’, and he says to himself, what do you mean ‘one guy,’ there’s thousands of them!” It’s not the absence of Christmas football in Germany and other parts of Europe that’s surprising - it’s the tradition of having official Christmas football in Britain that seems a bit odd.

But, the last Football League fixtures to be played on December 25, in England, were in 1959. Two matches were played that day between Blackburn Rovers 1 v 0 Blackpool in the old First Division and in the Third Division, Coventry beat Wrexham 5-3. The Scots carried on for a little longer.

25 Dec 1946	Blackburn Rovers v Blackpool	D	1-1	League Division One
26 Dec 1946	Blackpool v Blackburn Rovers	L	1-0	League Division One

25 Dec 1959	Blackburn Rovers v Blackpool	W	1-0	League Division One
26 Dec 1959	Blackpool v Blackburn Rovers	L	1-0	League Division One

24 Dec 1960	Blackpool v Blackburn Rovers	L	2-0	League Division One
27 Dec 1960	Blackburn Rovers v Blackpool	W	2-0	League Division One

25 Dec 1965

Blackpool v Blackburn Rovers

L

4-2

League Division One

There have been 12 matches between Coventry and Wrexham since the first one in 1909. Two were played at Christmas...local derby? A Quick change round!!

25 Dec 1959	Coventry City v Wrexham	W	5-3	League Division Three
26 Dec 1959	Wrexham v Coventry City	W	1-3	League Division Three

Image caption,Abstaining on religious ground