Football on Christmas Eve.

A case of history repeating itself.

It almost seems like a case of history repeating itself. Many decades ago football matches were played on both Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Now, in their infinite wisdom, the FA have done it again. As if the football fixture list wasn't congested enough as it is football, or so the rumour has it, has taken upon itself to stipulate that football be played on Christmas Eve and if the FA gets its way, then football would probably be played on each of the 12 Christmas days without so much as a break for mulled wine or a cracker.

What on earth happened to that festive spirit of goodwill when the footballers of the Premier League were spared their taxing duties over Christmas? Surely this is the time of the year when a football is locked away in a cupboard, football's families don a festive paper hat and cracker, told quite firmly to don the red coat, the white beard and then go tumbling down a chimney because mum is still cooking the turkey and the roast potatoes have to be in the oven as soon as possible.

But there are no concessions or sacrifices to be made for our lithe, athletic Premier League players because they're the ones who have to forsake the pleasures of Christmas and run themselves into the ground and deliver three valuable points for their relegation threatened team. Football over Christmas was designed for Boxing Day and essentially it was the game we played before the Christmas pantomime and usually in the morning quite inexplicably.

Then there were the Boxing Day afternoon matches which were normally light hearted affairs where local derbies between bitter rivals would be slugged out remorselessly with heavy stomachs and the leftovers of the previous day's mince pies. The winters were harder and colder, snow engulfing the touchlines, making football more or less impossible.

 But the kids had fun and that's all that seemed to matter and groundsmen across the country diligently cleared the white stuff with huge shovels while the players wore natty leggings, gloves, long sleeves and shivered bravely in the freezing cold. On the terraces the fans, in admirably good humoured form, would jump up and down to keep warm while playfully chucking snowballs at each other. The game though had to go on and it was only when conditions became desperately treacherous that matches would be called off.

Here we are though again and this time the FA have announced their latest piece of inspired thinking and forward planning. How about playing a Premier League fixture list on Christmas Eve when most of Britain are planning their Mass visit at mid- night or stocking up on those last minute presents. Crazy but true. What were the FA thinking of at the time if indeed they were thinking at all? Surely it must have occurred to somebody that a team at one end of the country would have to trundle all the way across admittedly empty motorways and play football on Christmas Eve. It seems too absurd for words.

This though is yet another example of the FA's complete disregard for both the players and fans who, whether they like it or not, must travel the length and breadth of the country on the most religious and holiest of holiday periods. Still it could be worse but not that much . Isn't it bad enough that our precious and  brilliant players have to go through an entire winter without so much as coming up for air or pausing for breath?

In Britain the almost deafening cry and clamour for a proper winter break has become an almost a boisterous din. We now know that in both France, Germany, Spain and most of the teams who will be adorning next year's World Cup in Russia will be safely tucked up in the warm sanctuary of their homes celebrating the Yuletide with their kith and kin and relishing the resumption of their season sometime in the middle of January or perhaps later.

Maybe this is an opportune time to recall that bizarre, surreal Boxing Day football fixture list in the winter of 1963. In isolation the whole day itself  must have made little or no sense to anybody but it happened. Appropriately pantomimes were about to be released on the British public but nobody could have foreseen that Aladdin would be wearing a football shirt. By the end of that day Jack and His Beanstalk must have been totally flummoxed.

Now what took place that day could never be fully explained or summarised to those with the driest of humour. It can only be assumed that most of the players who took to their muddy pitches that day had to be under the strongest influence of a few mischievous glasses of alcohol too many. In total, 66 goals were scored in the old First Division that amazing Boxing Day and you can only imagine that some of the defences that day must have had their minds on a some desert island where the palm trees wave and the sun beats down.

By the River Thames, Fulham met Ipswich Town and nobody had the slightest inkling of the astonishing events that would follow at Craven Cottage. Fulham promptly beat Ipswich 10-1. 10-1! Fulham rattled home 10 goals in a Boxing Day footballing banquet. The Fulham of Bobby Robson, Jimmy Hill and 'Tosh' Chamberlain feasted insatiably on 10 golden goals on a Boxing Day that the fans at the Cottage must have thought they were imagining it all. But on a day of complete footballing madness and bedlam everything that seemed normal on the outside world had been rendered abnormal on the First Division pitches of that day.

My team of course had to become deeply and emotionally involved in the weird sense of unreality that had now made a mockery of all of those pundits who think they can predict any result. West Ham met Blackburn Rovers at the old Upton Park on Boxing Day and must have wondered whether they should have stayed in bed. Some of us are faced with the most challenging of decisions and most of them are right. This was not the case for West Ham on a day of unrelenting nightmares.

Before the Hammers had had time to launch their first attack of the game Blackburn were opening up West Ham's ultimately helpless and fragile defence rather like the child who rips open the paper of their Christmas present. Goals were peppering the West Ham net as if an overnight deluge had flooded Upton Park. West Ham were beaten 8-2 at Upton Park and for those who were still in their cot that day it is a result that somehow defies belief and if any consolation was to be found in this dizzying East End disaster then the chances are that it may never happen again. Well, hopefully not.

The point is though that now in 2017 the Premier League is about to undergo it's first taste of Christmas tomfoolery and silliness. My father in law tells me that there was a full Christmas Day fixture list back in the mists of time. Back in the 1950s and 60s, the underground Tube trains would run and football was played against a suitably festive backdrop of well decorated Christmas trees, mistletoe and holiday time hilarity.

For whatever reason football fans probably didn't care when the game was played but not on the one day when families would gather together from all over the country with no other thought than a Christmas knees up. Then the voice of commonsense was heard and what had hitherto been some stupidly demanding schedule had now been an altogether more sensible arrangement. Football would only be played on Boxing Day and possibly New Year's Day.  Still the prospect of three or four games within such a confined space of time smacks of complete madness but then again where would we be without our forward thinking and visionary FA?

But football on Christmas Eve is the proposition to be put before British football fans. One day the FA will come to its senses with a bold announcement of a complete winter break for the game. With the World Cup now within our sights we know that it has to be enforced sooner or later because without that football free zone English football may have to suffer the inevitable consequences. Once again we may have to face another World Cup in a state of mental and emotional meltdown.

Next week the draw for next summer's World Cup in Russia will be held in the Kremlin which does conjure up some splendid images but comment may have to be reserved. Most of England will be hoping that England are joined in their group by those world beaters Panama, Australia and Egypt. The truth is though that most of world football has become a level playing field and the nations who would be customarily dismissed and underestimated before a World Cup are now ready and waiting and champing at the bit.

Still, we'll all be ready and waiting for the big Kremlin hoe down where tight lipped and straight faced Russian football officials will be doing everything by the book. Holding a football World Cup draw in the Kremlin still seems the unlikeliest location for any sporting occasion. Even now there are cynical voices who will insist that the whole draw will be rigged, the KGB will muscle their way into the hall with the direct result that a major international incident will happen in Red Square.

It is at times like this that you wonder what may be going through the mind of a man called Vladimir Putin or maybe his illustrious predecessors for that matter. Leonid Brezhnev never looked the happiest of souls but a football World Cup might have brought a wry smile to his wizened eyes. Boris Yeltsin, another former Russian president was renowned for his love of a cheap vodka or two  and conducting orchestras did provide him with a welcome diversion but it's hard to imagine how he would have fitted into a Dynamo Kiev team.

So it is that the Christmas festivities are almost upon us and all thoughts will turn to Moscow sooner or later. English football on Christmas Eve and a World Cup in Russia still seems like some weird fantasy that will never come to pass. Now though is the time to accept the unacceptable and believe that things will turn out for the best. For all my Russian readers you must forgive my world weary scepticism. Those Cossack dancers are truly exceptional and those samovars make a wonderful cup of tea. Football has much to look forward to.