When Christmas Day meant matchday for City | OneFootball

Football has always been an important part of the festive period for fans.

Open your presents, eat your turkey and forget about a Christmas movie, there’s a match to get to!

Football on Christmas Day seems unthinkable now but it was a reality for decades throughout the pyramid right up to the top-flight.

A busy football schedule over the festive period is a British tradition and one that divides opinion, particularly those from overseas who are not used to it.

“I love to play on Boxing Day and at winter when families and kids can go to the stadium and enjoy it,” Pep Guardiola said a few years ago, although he added that the hectic schedule added to injury concerns.

With so many games, it’s not uncommon for squads to train on Christmas Day, but no matches at least guarantees an opportunity to spend a big part of the day with family and loved ones.

But that wasn’t the case for the first seven decades of the professional game when 25 December was one to mark down on the calendar as a big match.

Local double-headers were scheduled back-to-back on Christmas Day and Boxing Day to cut down on travel but not on the demands of the players.

Last Christmas

England’s last game on Christmas Day was in 1965, when Blackburn Rovers travelled to Blackpool.

The final time there was a full fixture schedule was in 1957 which was also our last match played on 25 December.

Nearly 28,000 were inside Turf Moor to see mid-table Burnley host City who had risen to fifth in the First Division on the back of three straight wins at home to Everton and away to Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday.

Les McDowall’s side were the great entertainers, regularly involved in high-scoring games whether we won, lost or drew.

Those three pre-Christmas victories yielded 20 goals alone, with 13 of them from the Blues including a hat-trick from the legendary Ken Barnes who would go on to spend nearly 50 years at the Club as a player, coach, assistant manager and scout.

Despite a 9-2 defeat at West Brom and 8-4 loss at Leicester, we ended the season with more goals than we conceded and scored four or more goals in 12 of our 42 matches.

We would finish the season with 104 for and 100 against, the only occasion that a side scored and conceded a century of goals in a single season.

That side was crammed with City greats in the squad including legendary goalkeeper Bert Trautmann, Dave Ewing and Joe Hayes among them.

However, it was to be a turkey on Christmas Day rather than a cracker as City fell to a 2-1 defeat despite a goal from Ireland international Fionan ‘Paddy’ Fagan.

The midfielder was used to a busy holiday season at City having signed for the Club from Hull on Christmas Eve 1953, playing for the reserves on Christmas Day and making his first team debut in a 2-1 win over Sheffield United on Boxing Day.

Again it was a quick turnaround in 1957, with the Clarets travelling to Maine Road 24 hours later for the return fixture.

More than 47,000 attended and City made only one change with Ron Phoenix replacing Bobby Johnstone in the line-up.

Fagan was on target again with the fourth goal of a 4-1 win with Colin Barlow, Alan Kirkman and Hayes getting the others.

After a days’ rest, City were back in action on 28 December for a derby with reigning champions United, who were third in the table a point ahead of McDowall’s men.

A crowd of 70,483 squeezed inside Maine Road for a thrilling 2-2 draw with Hayes scoring for a second successive game and an own goal from United keeper Bill Foulkes securing a point.

Maine moments

Obviously, there has never been a game at the Etihad Stadium on Christmas Day and our last home match on the big day was in 1956.

Again it was a local derby, this time against seventh-placed Bolton Wanderers while City were at the wrong end of the table in 17th just five points above the relegation zone.

City had won the FA Cup in May but Wembley hero Trautmann had missed most of the season recovering from the broken neck he sustained in the final win over Birmingham City.

After two outings for the reserves, the German returned on 15 December in a defeat to Wolves and 10 days later would be his second game back.

But it was to end in defeat again as City were beaten 3-1 after a double from England star Nat Lofthouse while our goal came from Christmas specialist Fagan.

Another short turnaround saw us head to Burnden Park on Boxing Day but again Bolton ran out winners with a 1-0 victory.

Our last win on Christmas Day was in 1954 when Newcastle were beaten 3-1 at Maine Road with Billy Spurdle scoring twice.

City had the luxury of an extra day off before heading up to St James’ Park for the return match, but it still ended in disappointment with the Magpies winning 2-0.

Football feast

Perhaps the most incredible Christmas Day fixture was nearly a century ago in 1925 when City made the short journey to Bury in the First Division.

The Shakers had finished fifth the previous season and were in the top half again while City found themselves in a relegation battle.

Once again we were one of the most entertaining teams in the top-flight with goals always on the menu.

In October, an 8-3 victory over Burnley was followed by an 8-3 defeat away to Sheffield United while December started with a 5-1 win over Leicester and 4-3 triumph at Leeds.

The side included Tommy Johnson, our third highest ever goalscorer behind Sergio Aguero and Eric Brook, and he would be one of three players to finish the season with 20 or more goals.

Frank Roberts would finish as the leading scorer with 30 while Tommy Browell scored 28, including three hat-tricks.

So just over 23,500 were at Gigg Lane expecting plenty of entertainment, and they weren’t disappointed.

An incredible game finished 6-5 to Bury with Browell (two), Roberts, Johnson and the wonderfully named Cliff ‘Baggy’ Coupland scoring for City.

More than 50,000 were at Maine Road the following day for the return match and again Bury came out on top although not in as quite dramatic circumstances.

A 2-0 win for the Shakers dumped City into the relegation zone and it was to be an expensive double defeat as we went into a thrilling end of the season.

We had an extraordinary run to the FA Cup final, after overcoming amateur side Corinthians via a replay, then beat eventual first division champions Huddersfield Town 4-0, Crystal Palace 11-4, Clapton Orient away 6-1 and then Manchester United 3-0 in a semi-final at Bramall Lane.

But City were beaten 1-0 in the final by Bolton at Wembley on April 24 and still had two league games left to try to avoid relegation.

A 2-1 win over Leeds, our fourth straight victory, lifted us two places above the relegation zone but a 3-2 defeat at Newcastle on the final day and wins for Burnley and Leeds meant we went down.

Quite a feat for a team that scored more goals than any other top-flight side all season – with 120 in total and 89 in the league, and a single point on 25 or 26 December would have been enough to keep us up.

Boxing Day magic

December 26 has become the more traditional Christmas fixture and the last time we played on that date was in 2021.

That was another high-scoring game with a 6-3 victory over Leicester City thanks to goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez, Ilkay Gundogan, Raheem Sterling (two) and Aymeric Laporte.

Guardiola has taken charge of three other Boxing Day fixtures – a 2-0 win over Newcastle in 2020, a 2-1 defeat at Leicester in 2018 and a 3-0 win at Hull in his first season.

Among other big recent scorelines are a 4-1 win against Sunderland in 2015 and a 5-1 victory over Hull in 2008.

A 2-1 win over Liverpool in 2013 would prove pivotal as we went on to pip Brendan Rodgers’ side to the title on the final day of the season.

Perhaps the most special Boxing Day fixture was back in 1977 when we beat Newcastle 4-0 at Maine Road.

It was the day Club legend Colin Bell made an emotional return to action after more than 18 months of injury hell.

‘The King’ had not played since a terrible knee injury on the night of 12 November, 1975 but had worked incessantly to get back on the pitch.

A crowd of 45,811 fans built an incredible atmosphere at Maine Road as City romped ahead and waited for our loved substitute to get his chance.

Rumours spread at half-time that Colin was to come on for the second half and when the players filtered out onto the pitch, he was spotted and the ovation grew to an incredible crescendo.

It was a unforgettable moment that Colin and everyone inside Maine Road cherished forever.

Originally published in December 2023.