The Fosse Way

Boxing Day has been one of the showpiece dates in the English football calendar for a long time. The final Christmas Day fixture list was back in 1957, leaving Boxing Day as the traditional festive fixture ever since (a tradition the Premier League has not upheld this year though sadly, as there is just one match in the top division).

The fixture is often one of the first fans look for when the schedule is released in June. It’s usually notable for bumper crowds home and away, with extended family and friends taking in the game alongside the regular faithful. Walking along, singing a song, you might say. This despite reduced public transport and often poor weather conditions. Supporters across the land come together to enjoy the communal love of football, or indeed the grasp the opportunity to escape festivities at home.

One of the most famous Boxing Day fixture lists was back in 1963, where 66 goals were scored across ten top flight matches. This included a 10-1 win for Fulham against Ipswich, Liverpool beating Stoke 6-1, Burnley beating Manchester United by the same scoreline, Blackburn won 8-2 against West Ham and West Brom and Tottenham drew 4-4. Leicester managed to win that day too, with a comparatively mundane 2-0 home victory against Everton.

Unfortunately though, in recent times for our beloved club, there’s been far too much goodwill to opposing teams, the festive fixture generally leading to a very blue Christmas.

Since the turn of the century, we have played 25 times on 26th December, and the record is as follows: Won 5, Drawn 8, Lost 12. A win percentage of just 20%.

Looking back at the results during this period, the heaviest defeat was the first one, when Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal annihilated Peter Taylor’s team 6-1 at Highbury back in the year 2000. At this point, that team had been doing well so this result was a real shock and a precursor of what was to come.

Just before the turn of the century Martin O’Neill recorded one of just two Premier League wins we’ve managed on Boxing Day. Tony Cottee grabbed the goal in a 1-0 victory against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough in 1998.

The only other win on Boxing Day at Premier League level was in 2018, when Claude Puel’s team followed up an impressive win away at Chelsea just before Christmas by beating a prime-Pep Manchester City team 2-1 at the King Power Stadium, Ricardo’s late rocket the difference between the sides. Naturally, we followed up those two excellent results with a defeat to relegation-bound Cardiff a few days later to ensure it wasn’t a completely happy Christmas.

Although things aren’t great at the moment, the 21st century has coincided with our most successful period. However, even when we have been successful, Christmas cheer has been in short supply.

I’ll run through some results.

• 2015/16 – Premier League title season: Lost 2-1 at Anfield to Liverpool.
• 2016/17 – Reigning champions: Lost 2-0 at home to Everton.
• 2019/20 – Champions League-chasing: Drubbed 4-0 at home by champions-elect Liverpool (who’d only just arrived back in the country from the Club World Cup).
• 2020/21 – FA Cup-winning season: Aha – a creditable 2-2 draw against Manchester United… behind closed doors of course.
• 2021/22 – European season: A crazy game at the Etihad against Manchester City, where we were 4-0 down inside half an hour, got back to 4-3 just after the hour but eventually lost 6-3.

To be fair, we have had the misfortune of often playing good teams on Boxing Day, but it’s not just at Premier League level where we’ve found the fixture to be the least wonderful time of the year.

Here’s a few more going back a little further..

• 1993/94 – Brian Little’s eventual play-off winners: No game on Boxing Day ( drew 4-4 with this year’s opponents Watford on the 27th)
• 1995/96 – Martin O’Neill’s eventual play-off winners: No game on Boxing Day
• 1996/97 – League Cup winners: 1-1 at Liverpool.
• 1997/98 – European season: Lost 2-1 at Arsenal.
• 1999/00 – League Cup winners: Lost 2-1 at Leeds.
• 2002/03 – Micky Adams’s promotion-winning team: Lost 2-1 at home to Ipswich, (who’d also beaten us 2-0 the year before at Portman Road in the Premier League)

There were strangely a couple of good wins in our ‘dark period’ with a 2-1 away at Hull in 2006 (Kisnorbo and Williams) and a 2-0 win at home against Ipswich in 2007 (Stearman and Kisnorbo) before relegation to League One.

Bucking the trend, as was often the case, was Nigel Pearson, who had a good record.

• 2008/09 – League One winners: Drew 1-1 at Leeds.
• 2009/10 – Play-off semi-final losers: Won 2-1 at home against Sheffield United (Michael Morrison and Matty Fryatt with the goals)
• 2011/12: Drew 1-1 at home to Ipswich
• 2012/13: Drew 0-0 at his old club Hull
• 2013/14 – Championship title-winning team: Won 1-0 at home against Reading through a David Nugent penalty. Although a power cut later in the game almost scuppered Sir Nige!

This run sadly ended the following season in 2014/15 when in the Premier League, as his team endured a narrow 2-1 home defeat to Tottenham.

Our most recent Boxing Day game was once again at Anfield, where Jordan Ayew unexpectedly opened the scoring before Mo Salah-inspired Liverpool to a rather comfortable 3-1 victory.

So, enough of the ghosts of Christmas past, what awaits us this Christmas present? The early advent up-tick in form was eviscerated by an aligned payroll last Friday and a misaligned performance at QPR last Saturday.

Javi Gracia’s Watford travel up the M1 to the King Power stadium for the festive ‘feast’ on Friday. Let’s hope Marti Santaentes has a much needed win in store for us.

Merry Christmas everyone!