JINGLE BALLS

Want to find a match to attend on Xmas Day? Well, you’re in luck. If you’re in the Middle East that is. There are three league games scheduled in Israel and one in Saudi Arabia. Or if you’re fortunate enough to be spending the festive season in the Caribbean you could take in the solitary fixture being played in Jamaica. OK, strictly speaking that’s a Xmas Eve match but it kicks off at 1.35 in the morning of Xmas Day our time. That though is your lot. Most of the world sees a football shutdown.

(click to enlarge images)

It wasn’t always thus. For decades the English League played on both Xmas AND Boxing days. In Scotland the traditional holiday matches took place at New Year. But there was one exception. That was whenever Xmas Day fell on a Saturday. Then games carried on as normal. It was a Saturday, it was 3pm (or 1.30 or 2.00 for grounds with no lights). Therefore it was fitba’ time. Easy.

The last time Scottish football attempted this was in 1976 but the weather devastated the card with just three senior games surviving. The last occasion a FULL Scottish League fixture list was played on Xmas Day was in 1971.

It wasn’t easy for either fans or players. There were far fewer cars back then and public transport was non-existent. Yet somehow supporters overcame the difficulties involved. Over 100,000 turned up in 1971 to see the eighteen league games played, nine each in the two divisions that then existed.

With derbies scheduled for New Year and computerisation still years away not much care was paid to who played where. Hearts went to Parkhead while Rangers travelled to Easter Road. But whichever Raith Rovers fan compiled the lists back then must have really had it in for Queen of the South. What other possible explanation could there be for sending the Doonhamers to Arbroath on Xmas Day?

Why am I so certain the fixtures compiler was a denizen of Stark’s Park? Well, in those days there were 37 clubs in the Scottish League and every Saturday a club in the old Second Division got the day off. On Xmas Day 1971 the players and supporters of Raith Rovers were the lucky ones who got to have a Xmas dinner then put their feet up.

Junior clubs weren’t as keen as the seniors on festive fitba.’ There were just five games in the old Central League, two in Ayrshire and one West of Scotland Cup tie - though Muirkirk took the radical step of arranging their game with Maybole for Boxing Day in an era when Sunday football was virtually unheard of.

Some sights from back then are unimaginable today. Airdrie, Clyde and East Fife all played in the top flight. But the top of the table at Xmas 1971 was no different from many in more recent times. Celtic led from Aberdeen with Rangers, Hibs and Hearts chasing. As for your scribe, I can’t remember what I got that Xmas morning but there was surely no better present than watching the highest scoring match of the day as Kilmarnock beat Morton 4-2 at Rugby Park to take two precious points. Hard-fought rather than gift-wrapped but just as welcome nonetheless.

Don't let anyone try and fool you into thinking 1970s Xmas TV was some kind of long-lost Shangri-La either. Not unless the Black & White Minstrels, Billy Smart's Circus or Cilla Black as 'Aladdin' is your idea of visual Nirvana. And that was just the BBC. STV countered with Reg Varney, Mike & Bernie Winters and the homegrown Kelvin Hall Circus. All the Xmas movies had been screened before. It was left to Messrs Barker, Corbett, Morecambe and Wise to save the day entertainment-wise. 

Perhaps 'inspired' by the soporific fare offered on television, Kilmarnock FC kept the Killie Club open over the holiday weekend, culminating in a holiday Monday performance by 'Steak and Kidney' himself - Prestwick's answer to Glenn Campbell, the one-and-only Sydney Devine.

The BBC was a football-free zone and TV on all three (count them, THREE) channels closed around midnight. At least STV had the decency to screen a 'normal' Saturday night 'Scotsport' with Arthur Montford at 11.45 pm before sending everyone off to bed half an hour later with music from Arthur Blake and his Orchestra.

And on that note let me take this opportunity to wish a happy Xmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year to one and all.