The ramblings of a football historian, whose interests lie in the origins of the game and the ups and downs of Spurs and Barnsley FC.
Monday, 23 December 2024
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 Johnesexplains 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.
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!!
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