When Christmas meant three games in three days!

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Albion's festive programme this season is two games in four days. Seventy years ago it was a lot more hectic!

Bruce Talbot

2024-12-25T07:00+00:00

The show must go on: Snow clearance ahead of a Christmas Day fixture at the Goldstone Ground in the 1950s

Fabian Hurzeler is a big fan of the festive schedule in England and admits he will be preparing for Brentford's visit on Christmas Day.

"It's a prvilege to work in the Premier League at this time of year," he said, as Albion prepare for two games in four days with a trip to Villa Park next Monday to finish 2024.

But it's doubtful if the head coach would have been a fan of the schedule facing Albion's players a century or so ago when they played three games... in three days!

Games on Christmas Day were a feature of the fixture list up until 1957 and over the years Albion have played 37 times on December 25.

Their last match on this date was a 2-2 draw at Swindon in 1957, and you have to go back to 1946 for the last time they played a Football League fixture at home on 25 December – a 6-1 home defeat to Exeter City in Division Three (South) in front of a crowd of 8015 at the Goldstone Ground.

Christmas Day games traditionally kicked off in the morning. Anecdotal evidence suggests this was so men could get out of the house and leave their wives to cook the most important meal of the year.

Often, the reverse fixture would take place on Boxing Day but in 1919, when Albion lost 3-2 on Christmas Day at the Goldstone against Crystal Palace, they also played the following day and on December 27. That same exhausting schedule, when Christmas Day fell on a Thursday, was repeated in 1924 and 1930.

In 1924 Albion kicked off their festivities with a 2-1 win at Bristol Rovers in front of 19,000 at Rovers’ old ground at Eastville and were back there six years later to share six goals with Rovers with 13,229 in attendance.

With trains running as normal, Christmas Day games attracted good crowds.

Christmas Day football continued in wartime and in 1940 a severely depleted Albion arrived at Norwich City with only five players – one senior, three juniors and a loanee – and cobbled together an XI using volunteers from the crowd. In front of 1,419 spectators, Norwich won 18-0.

You might have thought that the fixture planners would have tried to reduce travelling by organising local matches and Albion have played Palace four times on Christmas Day. But they also had to travel to Newport County, Exeter City, both Bristol clubs and Port Vale down the years.

With no shutdown of public transport, teams would get an early train and return to Brighton afterwards in the same carriage with the players they had just faced for the Boxing Day re-match.

It wasn’t just the first team who would be in action. Albion Reserves played seven post-War games on December 25 and the 3-1 win over Watford in 1957 proved to be the last Christmas Day fixture at the Goldstone.

By then clubs were beginning to erect floodlights so there was no need to play on every public holiday. The last Christmas Day game in England took place in 1965 but the tradition lingered in Scotland until 1976.

Friday's opponents Brentford and Wimbledon tried to revive the tradition in 1983, but fans protested and the game took place on Christmas Eve instead.

With thanks to Albion historian Tim Carder