It is 26 December 1860, a chilly winter day in the middle of England. The founders of Sheffield FC, the first organised football club, have drawn up new rules for the sport, introducing throw-ins, corner kicks and crossbars, and are preparing for a historic match against rivals Hallam FC. The first recognised clash between the two landmark clubs is played at Hallam’s ground, Sandygate Road, with the visitors winning 2-0. So begins one of the longest-running traditions in sport: football during the festive season in the United Kingdom.
Despite calls for a winter break during the English Premier League era, to conform to the norm across most of Europe’s top leagues including Spain, Italy and France, the tradition of games on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, remains steadfast. Despite the Sheffield sides kicking the festive tradition off with a Boxing Day game, it was fairly common, up until the 1950s, for football to be played on Christmas Day itself in England and Scotland.
“Once inside the ground it was clear this was no ordinary occasion, for the atmosphere was something special,” one Sheffield United fan recalled of Christmas Day 1948. “The band played Christmas carols and many of the crowd sported their presents. Spirit flasks were passed among groups of friends and swigged with a slightly furtive air.”
From the second season of the Football League, in which Preston North End hosted Aston Villa on 25 December 1889, more often than not the English leagues had Christmas Day football until 1957, the last time the majority of league clubs played on the 25th, with the final Christmas Day games in Englandcoming in 1959. Scotland kept that particular tradition going for longer, finally concluding with two games on Christmas Day 1976.
You have everything you love in life: your family and playing football – and you get to combine it together. It makes for the perfect Christmas.
Roberto Martinez
Since the very first season of the English Football League, in which Preston North End’s ‘invincibles’ hammered West Bromwich Albion 5-0 on 26 December 1888, Boxing Day has become a truly integral part of the footballing calendar in England and Scotland. In fact, along with the final day of the Premier League season, it is one of the few days on which all 20 sides are usually in action on the same afternoon. Traditionally, Boxing Day fixtures between sides local to each other were arranged, to make it easier for fans and players to travel to games. At times, teams would play both home and away games within days of each other, meaning the festive period was a time for bumper crowds, packing in to see fierce local rivalries played out on the pitch. The tradition of local derbies scheduled around Christmas died out, in the top flight at least, in the 1980s, due to modernisation in transport and in an effort to make the fixture list more rounded, random and fairer.
As Boxing Day matches became a staple of the game, along with an attempt to keep traditional weekend fixtures, it means a quick run of games, although it is unlikely a repeat of 1975’s festive period in the top flight will be seen in the modern era; ten games on 26 December were followed, remarkably, by 11 games the following day. In fact, up until the final Christmas Day games in 1959, it was reasonably common to have Christmas Day/Boxing Day double-headers. While two games in two days for the same team will not be repeated in the modern era, a run of three games in a week is not unusual in Englandduring Christmastime, and that can be an alien experience for those not born on the British Isles.
“It’s the toughest league in the world. While everyone is having their holidays, and trust me it helps a lot – [here] we play December 26th, December 28th, January 1st,” Cesc Fabregas, who enjoyed a winter break while at Barcelona in Spain’s La Liga, told the Independent. “It’s not the same getting into the Champions League knockout stages after playing every two or three days in the Premier League [compared to] having had ten days off on holiday, where you can go to Dubai and enjoy yourself.”
“Christmas in England is the toughest time,” former Wigan Athletic midfielder Paul Scharner told the BBCin 2012. “In any Premier League dressing room the winter break is always a talking point, because they see the Italian and Spanish leagues - and all the others - who can rest.”
But his former coach Roberto Martinez, currently manager at Everton, was supportive of the flurry of football over the festive period, when talking exclusively to FIFA.com.
“When I first arrived in England as a player in 1994, it was a shock,” he said. To think that you’d have Christmas morning and then immediately start preparations for the Boxing Day match with training and a pre-match meal was difficult to understand.
“Initially for me, I felt as though I was taking time away from the family, but once I thought about it, it became clear that it was the ideal scenario. You have everything you love in life: your family and playing football – and you get to combine it together. It makes for the perfect Christmas.
“You adapt to it quickly. I think that the size of the crowds and the atmosphere which is created throughout the Christmas fixtures is special. It makes you realise how important football is for British people, and how much it plays a role in family life.
“It’s something that the foreign players find strange when they first come over here, but they miss it when they move back or to another country. Some players who have left the British game have told me that they now find it strange that there’s no Christmas football in other countries! It’s one of the many things they miss about the English game.”
The midst of winter in England has a reputation for goals, with fans expecting high-scoring games due to famous festive fixtures of the past. This reputation perhaps comes from the peak of Christmastime craziness, with 66 goals in ten First Division matches in 1963. Fulham thrashed Ipswich Town 10-1, Blackburn Rovers overran West Ham United 8-2, while Liverpool demolished Stoke City 6-1 and Burnleybeat Manchester united by the same scoreline.
The statistics do not seem to back up the Boxing Day reputation, in the Premier League era at least. The average for the league from its inception in 1992 through to the end of the 2013/14 season was 2.64 goals per game, with games on 26 December seeing slightly below that figure, at 2.61 goals per game on average.
Other sports with their origins in the UK have tried to lay claim to Boxing Day as a day of fanfare, with horse racing the only other pastime to come close. Each 26 December seeing the traditional King George VI Chase at Kempton, one of the biggest days in the racing calendar. Further afield, Melbourne’s intimidating MCG has hosted its famous Boxing Day cricket test every year since 1974, with the Ashes tests between England and Australia hotly anticipated every four years.
Despite other disciplines looking to share the limelight during the festive period, and calls for a winter break in England’s top flight, the drama, delight and festive fun of Boxing Day football takes some beating throughout the world of sport.
0 comments:
Post a Comment