ON THIS DAY

When Hull City found themselves 4-0 down at half-time away to Manchester City in a Boxing Day Premier League fixture Tigers manager Phil Brown was not chuffed. He likened Hull's efforts as a 'Sunday League performance' and with his Christmas spirit absent he refused to allow his players to return to the dressing room during the half-time break. Instead he sat them on the pitch in front of the 5500 travelling fans and gave the players a bollocking! Hull lost the match 5-1 but hey, that meant they had drawn the second half 1-1!

There was a time when a 'foreign' player in the League was from Scotland, Ireland or Wales but on Boxing Day 1999 Chelsea fielded the first team in the League to consist entirely of non-British players. They won 2-1 at Southampton in the Premier League with a starting line-up of - Ed de Goey (Netherlands), Albert Ferrer (Spain), Celestine Babayaro (Nigeria), Emerson Thome (Brazil), Franck Leboeuf (France), Dan Petrescu (Romania), Didier Deschamps (France), Roberto di Matteo (Italy), Gabriele Ambrosetti (Italy), Gus Poyet (Uruguay), and Tore Andre Flo (Norway). Their manager was Gianluca Vialli of Italy but at least they had English subs that day!

For the first time the two Sheffield clubs found themselves playing each other in the Third Division. Boxing Day saw the first of those matches, Wednesday beating United 4-0 at Hillsborough in front of a Third Division record crowd – still – of 49,309.

A record number of goals were scored in one day in the top division – 66 goals in 10 matches in the old First Division. That figure included 11 at Craven Cottage – Fulham 10 Ipswich Town 1 – which was the last time a club scored double-figures in a top flight match.

It's never over until the final whistle blows. Syd Reid had scored 4 goals to help Luton Town to a 5-1 half-time lead in the Third Division (South) match at the County Ground against Northampton Town on Boxing Day 1927. But at the final whistle Northampton were the victors 6-5.

The Dick Kerr’s Ladies Football team, formed in a Preston munitions factory in the First World War, played St Helens Ladies in front of a capacity 53,000 crowd at Goodison Park with over 10,000 locked out. The men-only Football Association were not too happy…..