Football And Christmas  

Football and Christmas go together like turkey and stuffing; mistletoe and wine and any other festive combo you can think of.   

Until the 1950s Christmas Day was always reserved for a local derby fixture with the return match usually played on Boxing Day. 

This was as true in the amateur game as it was with the professionals with close rivals such as Hayes and Southall meeting every year in festive grudge matches.   

Cramming in games during the Christmas and New Year period isn’t nearly so intense as it was fifty years ago but travelling back even further in time reveals that football and Christmas were intertwined long before the game became officially established with clubs and rules. 

Football has long been associated with festivals such as Shrove Tuesday and in the 17^th century celebrating Christmas was seen as great excuse to get together for a kick-about.  Rival parishes, villages or communities would line up for a ‘football’ match with dozens or even hundreds on each side.   

These matches would continue for hours as a virtual scrimmage with the players more interested in breaking heads than in scoring goals.  So as well as football and Christmas going together so did football and violence.  Much like the 1980s in fact.   

The authorities understandably didn’t much care for hundreds of footballers chasing each other over field and dale and football was often banned at Christmas. 

In an attempt to really clamp down on the problem in the 1640s not only was football banned but the Puritan Parliament also decided to ban Christmas.  They didn’t mess about in those days. 

Football became almost subversive at this time and was often used as a form of protest.  Even in those far off days Scarborough was a hotbed of football and after one match in the 1660s 13 players were rounded up and prosecuted with one unfortunate lad ending up in the stocks.   

Riots frequently broke out when the authorities tried to ban football and in Bristol there was fearful trouble when the local magistrate not only banned footie but also the recreational sport of cock throwing! 

Playing football had long been seen as away of thumbing your nose at the authorities and many matches were staged on church grounds in a deliberate attempt to undermine the religious leaders who strove to subvert the game.   

One of the worst instances of a football riot occurred in York in the middle of the 17^th century when footballers took out their anger at a match being stopped by smashing the windows of a nearby church. 

Many were arrested and each fined 20 schillings (a very large slap on the wrist) this provoked outrage and a mob of over 100 people armed with swords and muskets rioted and even trashed the mayors house.    

As football became more organised the ball actually began to become important to the game and festive football became more civilised though ‘hacking’ wasn’t outlawed until 1873.   

Football and Christmas carried on being inexorably linked however and a match between local clubs was often the focal point of a communities festive celebrations.