From Cup replays to 3pm blackouts, our game’s great heritage is under attack, writes OLIVER HOLT – thankfully, the action packed Boxing Day calendar is still going strong

It was Christmas Eve in 1991 when I drove a Morris Minor from Merseyside to London for my first overnight work trip. The first working trip was in fact a journey longer than the tunnel connecting Liverpool and Birkenhead.

I checked into the Ibis hotel next to Euston Station, feeling as if I had accomplished a great achievement, and on Boxing Day I made my way to Shepherd’s Bush for Liverpool’s afternoon kick-off against QPR in the First Division.

It didn’t matter to me that the match ended 0-0. It may not have been the best game, but it was another chance to see Ray Wilkins play and he had always been one of my favorite players. Clive Wilson and Roy Wegerle were also in that QPR team. They were quite a team.

And I was still kicking myself for being a football reporter, standing on the concrete concourse outside the press room on Loftus Road, talking to Graeme Souness after the match with the rest of the press pack and having a few words with Jan Molby.

Doing this for work felt too good to be true then, just as it does now. I loved Boxing Day football anyway. I loved the way it was an excuse to get out of the house on a day that always seemed anticlimactic.

I loved that this marked the moment when football took back control of my life after the holiday break. And I loved the tradition of Boxing Day football and what it originally stood for. For many working people in the early decades of the 20th century, its designation as a public holiday and the fact that it was usually a day off for domestic servants meant that this might be one of the few occasions on which they got to see a match.

In the years surrounding the First World War, many teams played on Christmas Day, but when that began to be taken up with family time, the matches were moved to Boxing Day, when clubs were also assured of large crowds. And so our Boxing Day calendar feels like a comforting ritual. Going to the football on Boxing Day is as much a part of Christmas for many of us as eating turkey and stuffing and opening presents under the tree. For many, this is the best part of Christmas escapism.

It is also an annual reminder of the importance of football in our national culture and of the wonderfully obsessive loyalty of supporters in this country. In the United States there are two NFL games and a number of NBA games on Christmas Day. At the heart of the Christmas holidays in Britain we go to the football.

This year it will be the same. Boxing Day is likely to be dominated by the compelling story of the continued fall of Manchester City, who face Everton at home in the first match of the day as they try to halt their dramatic slide from the top of the Premier League.

Losing to Everton and the unthinkable idea of ​​Pep Guardiola’s job as City manager coming under pressure will seem just that little bit more real. Not because City would ever sack him, but because Guardiola may become even more upset, distracted and dejected by the collapse of his champions.

That story alone will ensure that football takes center stage during the Christmas holidays. Let’s face it: as the assault on the traditions of English football accelerates, driven by the greed of the Premier League and the predatory demands of the broadcasters, Boxing Day football is one of the few nods to the past we have left .

FA Cup replays have been sacrificed. That includes the idea that the FA Cup final should start at 3pm on Saturday and the tradition that the cup final should be the final act of the domestic season. The television blackout for the 3pm kick-off is next on the chopping block. All this makes Boxing Day football even more valuable.

Other countries look at us and think it’s strange that we have such a heavy schedule over Christmas and New Year, but it’s part of our culture and part of what gives our gaming identity. There aren’t many points of difference in our homogenized world, but playing professional football on Boxing Day is one of them.

Several years earlier I had reached a point where I became obsessive about watching football and the holiday programs provided an opportunity to indulge that obsession more than any other time of year.

On Boxing Day 1983 I went to see Manchester City play Oldham Athletic at Maine Road in the club’s first season in the top flight after their famous relegation at the hands of David Pleat’s Luton Town the season before. I looked at the front of the program again last week. It’s a photo of the manager, Billy McNeill, pulling a giant Christmas cracker with his assistant, Jimmy Frizzell. The design made it look like they were standing in a giant Christmas pudding, topped with a sprig of holly.

For those now trying to pretend that City are a club with no history or loyal support, it is worth noting that more than 35,000 fans attended their 2-0 win over their neighbors that day.

They struggled to overcome the trauma of relegation that season and although they beat Oldham that day, I associated that team with Jim Tolmie as one of the advanced players with the mediocrity that had fallen upon City.

They finished fourth in the Second Division that season, just outside the automatic promotion places of Chelsea, Sheffield Wednesday and Newcastle United, one place higher than Grimsby Town.

Until I checked, I had managed to convince myself that I had watched three matches that Boxing Day, but it turned out that, not for the first time, I had exaggerated.

Looking through the old King’s School Macclesfield practice book I had acquired for my lovingly kept record of matches attended, the three matches were spread over two days. I was at City-Oldham on Boxing Day, Manchester United v Notts County on the afternoon of the 27th and Stockport County v Hereford United on the evening of the 27th.

Until the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, I saw two matches in one day again. United spoiled it against Notts County when they allowed Justin Fashanu to score two late goals to salvage a 3-3 draw at Old Trafford, but Stockport won 1-0 in front of 2,287 fans under the lights of Edgeley Park.

I loved that County team, just as we all love the sides and players we associate with our youth. Micky Quinn, my all-time County hero, was at the front. Quinn had scored a hat-trick at Crewe earlier that season. For a Stockport striker at the time, that was the best possible. What a Christmas that was in 1983. The celebration was in football.

I wonder if the current Premier League managers, whining about the festive fixture list, realize that back then the Division One teams played on Boxing Day and then again on the following day, December 27. All.

United had played Notts County in Coventry the day before they drew. Arsenal beat Spurs 4–2 in the North London derby on Boxing Day, but could only draw against Birmingham City on the 27th. It was the same for everyone, throughout the competition.

I don’t remember any complaints about the workload back then, but maybe my mind is playing tricks on me again. I do know that I will be at Chelsea-Fulham this Boxing Day, enjoying the privilege of watching Cole Palmer play live, and at Arsenal-Ipswich Town on the 27th to see if Arsenal can revive their title challenge.

Only the two games this year, but the excitement of the Christmas holiday list remains the same.

If you want, you can play three matches on Boxing Day. Forty years ago I would have tried. You could do City-Everton at lunch, run to Salford City’s 3pm kick-off against Barrow at Moor Lane and then head to Merseyside for Liverpool-Leicester City at 8pm.

It seems right that it is Liverpool who will bring the curtain down this year. The league leaders were brilliant in their 6-3 draw with Spurs at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday and they will be favored to deliver another trouncy to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s team.

To watch them play, to see one of the club’s all-time greats, Mo Salah, at the height of his powers, to witness Trent Alexander-Arnold’s ballplaying genius and Virgil’s imperious defense of Dyke. perfect nightcap at the end of another wonderful day full of competition and sporting talent.

It’s worth saying again: Boxing Day is a celebration in football.