Busy festive schedule is no longer a time of sky-high scores

Christmas was a hard time for footballers in England even before Covid. Now some of them are ill and the others have to carry on as best they can – unless there are so few of them that the organisers agree to a cancellation.

A full programme of Premier League and EFL fixtures was scheduled for today and tomorrow, another between Tuesday and Thursday and a third from Saturday until next Monday.

Many people think that when games come thick and fast so do goals. Generally they do not. Perhaps the surviving attackers get as tired as the surviving defenders.

Here are figures for Premier League and EFL games played over Christmas and New Year during the last 24 seasons, 1997-98 to 2020-21.

On Boxing Day the average number of goals per game was 2.63. In later Christmas and New Year fixtures the average number of goals per game was also 2.63. In both periods the proportion of games yielding three goals or more was 50 per cent. Scores did not go up and keep going up as the sequence of fixtures wore on.

One December when Jose Mourinho was managing in England he said: “At this moment the German guys are on the beach, the Spanish guys are in the Maldives getting sun. Everybody else is doing that. But in this country there is no Christmas, just football. And I think the players deserve respect.”

This year footballers employed in Germany and Spain are again on holiday, although they might still be in Germany and Spain. Mourinho now works in Italy in Serie A, where teams played last on December 22 and will not play again until January 6.

Footballers in England were not always as ready for all eventualities as they are now. I feel that their readiness can be taken advantage of. In the past players were less well paid and less well prepared.

Until 1959 games were played even on Christmas Day. In fact, teams played each other twice in 24 hours – on one team’s ground on Christmas Day, on the other team’s ground on Boxing Day.

The highest score in the history of the Football League occurred on Boxing Day 1935 when Tranmere won 13-4 at home to Oldham. The day before Oldham had beaten Tranmere 4-1. You can get an idea not only of how high the scores could be but also of how erratic the results could be.

On other Boxing Days Darwen won 12-0 at home to Walsall (1896) and Manchester City won 9-3 at Tranmere (1938). Even after Christmas Day fixtures had been phased out, there were still Boxing Day scores such as Oldham 11 Southport 0 (1962) and Fulham 10 Ipswich 1 (1963). And those are just some of the most extreme examples. It is unlikely there will be any of a similar magnitude today.

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