TWIH: City's Last Christmas Day Fixture

Kicking off at 11am, Leicester City’s last ever Christmas Day fixture was an old First Division match against Stanley Matthews’ Blackpool at Bloomfield Road. City were trounced 5-1. It ended a tradition which had stretched back to the 1890s.

Leicester Fosse’s first Christmas day fixture was a 4-1 defeat at Bury in 1894. Their first Christmas Day home fixture was against Woolwich Arsenal the following year, when a Filbert Street crowd of 6,000 saw the Fossils win 1-0.  There then followed a sequence of three bumper Christmas Day gates at Filbert Street against Loughborough Town. These matches ended in 1899 because Loughborough dropped out of the Football League at the end of that season.

Christmas Day fixtures at Filbert Street were extremely popular. Gates were always well above average. Even when League Football was suspended during the First and Second World Wars, Christmas Day fixtures remained a feature of the Wartime Regional Leagues.

Christmas Day Fixtures were invariably followed by another game on Boxing Day. These in turn were often followed by yet another game on 28 or 29 December. Three games in four days was not uncommon.

In 1914, the Football League arranged for the Boxing Day fixture to be the return fixture against the Christmas day opponents.

This pattern of fixtures was continued when the League programme was restarted after the First World War. In fact for the first five seasons after that War, the idea of playing the same team at home and then away, or the other way around, in successive matches was extended to spread across the whole season. Matches against the same opponent were played on successive weekends, giving the fixture lists a strange look.

There were some startling results in the Christmas Day fixtures. For example, when Leicester won promotion to the top Division in 1924/25 they beat Port Vale 7-0 with Johnny Duncan scoring six goals. This result was all the more remarkable because this was the last season in which there had to be three players behind the ball to prevent offside, a rule which resulted in comparatively very few goals being scored. They changed to the current offside law the following season when two rather than three players had to be between the attacker and the goal.

A remarkable feature of these double-headed Christmas fixtures was the number of times a result on Christmas Day was completely reversed in the return fixture on Boxing Day. The most startling example of this came in the wartime fixture in 1940 when an away defeat of 2-5 against Northampton was followed by a 7-2 home victory 24 hours later.

Leicester City’s last ever Christmas Day/Boxing day double-header, 56 years ago this week, was such an occasion.

In losing 5-1 at Bloomfield Road, Leicester City were unfortunate to encounter Blackpool ‘at their sparkling best’. In those pre-substitute days, the City were not helped by an injury to their Northern Ireland international Willie Cunningham (who was to play in the World Cup Finals the following summer). He was injured in the first half trying to stop a pile-driver from Blackpool’s Bill Perry, an injury which saw him spend the rest of the game hobbling on the right wing.

Stanley Matthews laid on the first goal when he dribbled 50 yards before passing to Jackie Mudie who scored in the 15th minute. Leicester held on until half time but three goals in seven second half minutes finished them off. Towards the end of the game, Blackpool took a 5-0 lead. Their other goals were scored by Brian Peterson and Bill Perry who scored two each. Leicester’s goal was scored two minutes from time by Willie Gardiner.

All of Blackpool’s goals had stemmed from their right flank of Stanley Matthews and Ernie Taylor. The report at the time concluded that  ‘Leicester’s attack only moved in fits and starts, whilst their defence was as wide open as a barn door, particularly when the long ball was pushed down the middle, a move which Matthews and (inside right) Taylor used frequently.’

Defeat in their last ever Christmas Day fixture was a bad blow for Leicester. The previous season they had stormed their way to the Second Division title, on the back of Arthur Rowley’s astonishing goal scoring feats, breaking several Club records in the process. After this defeat, their hold on their newly regained First Division status looked precarious. They went into the Boxing Day fixture bottom-but-one in the table.

However, against the odds, in front of a 33,000 Boxing Day crowd at Filbert Street, City beat Blackpool 2-1. Jimmy Walsh gave Leicester the lead in the 12th minute. Blackpool’s David Durie, who had missed the Christmas Day fixture due to his religious beliefs, equalised after 25 minutes, but in the 65th minute, Leicester’s centre-forward Willie Gardiner, made a run for the Blackpool penalty area. He veered to the left, beat two men and placed a low shot just inside the far post for the winning goal.

It was perhaps significant that in this last ever Christmas double-header, City fans had a glimpse of the future. Three players who were to be central to the Club’s golden era of the 1960s were recalled to the side for the Boxing Day match. They were Howard Riley, Jimmy Walsh and Ian King, who went on to become Club legends.

As a footnote, 48 hours after the Boxing Day game, Leicester City  beat Leeds United 3-0 in front of a 31 000 crowd. Relegation was avoided on the last day of the season.

Pics:

01: Programme for Leicester City’s last ever Christmas Day match in 1957.

02: Programme for the 1957 Boxing Day fixture

03: Willie Gardner, the last Leicester City player to score on Christmas Day.

Lead Image: Leicester City manager David Halliday (left)  and coach Matt Gillies were in charge of the  Leicester City team for the 1957 Christmas Day fixture.