Who was the first footballer to score on Christmas Day?

Photo: D-Kine/Getty Images

“Who was the first player to score on Christmas Day?” asks Sarah Tomlinson.

For a long time, games on Christmas Day were a regular part of the English Football League calendar. The first was played on 25 December 1889, when defending champions Preston beat Aston Villa 3-2 in a, ahem, ding-dong game. The opening goal was scored after six minutes by Preston Scotland striker Nick Ross, who became the first man to score in the Christmas Day Football League.

We don’t think he’ll be the first to score in a competitive game, though. A year earlier, Everton played two games on Christmas Day: a Lancashire Cup game against Blackburn Park Road, followed by an exhibition game against Ulster FC. The opening goal – or “point” as it was called in most newspaper reports – was scored by a Black River Park Road representative listed as only “Gargett”. “Mackereth scored, and Gargett scored with absolute beauty,” read the Liverpool Mercury report. “This point was deservedly won, and it drew much applause.” Everton won 3-2.

But if we look at the Christmas Day stronghold in Scotland, there was a scorer eight years earlier. There were three Scottish Cup Games on 25th December 1880 but, since there were no live scoring applications 143 years ago, the details are not so easy to nail down for sure. What we found was that Rangers v Dunbreton and Arthurlie v Vale of Leven were both goalless at half-time, but Campsie Central v Queen’s Park was a one-sided goal. Qphistory.com report Queen’s Park as 10-0 winners with goals to George “Geordie” Ker (3), John Smith (3), Johnny Kay (2) and Harry McNeil (2).

So, assuming that order is chronological and Ker scored first, he is the first ever footballer to find the back of the net in a competitive Christmas Day game. And if not, then our festive party hat with one of the other three scorers listed.

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“I vaguely remember waking up on a Boxing Day morning a few years ago (with a huge hangover) and seeing a Football Focus caption with an old list of Boxing Day fixtures and lots of goals. Did he have something to do with the GPs or did this really happen?” wondered Ken Davro in the year 2000.

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We are not doctors, so our lawyers advised us not to comment on the floating spots in front of your eyes. But we can help you with the Boxing Day thing. On 26 December 1963, a staggering 66 goals were scored in the Old First Division, leaving some teams wishing the previous season’s Big Freeze (which had wiped out almost all football between Boxing Day and March). Here are the classifications:

If that was not strange enough, the results two days later – when many of the teams were to play the “return leg” – beggar belief. West Ham, who lost 8-2 at home to Blackburn, won 3-1 at Ewood Park. Manchester United, fresh from a 6-1 win at Burnley, turned the tables at Old Trafford with a 5-1 win. And poor Ipswich, who were clearly on Christmas Day, avenged their 10-1 defeat at Fulham with a 4-2 win over the Cottagers at Portman Road. Well the two points did them, mind you: they finished bottom.

“Do you know which football club opened their ground for ice skating because the field was frozen?” asked Kim Vanderhoven back in 2004.

It was 1962-63, and England and Wales had their coldest winter since 1740 (incidentally, Scotland was suffering its worst since 1829). From Boxing Day 1962 to early March 1963, most of the British Isles were covered in snow, with temperatures between five and seven degrees below average.

Not surprisingly, hardly any football was played. In fact, the winter was so severe that Barnsley only managed two games from 21 December 1962 to 12 March 1963. Up the road in Halifax, however, they hit upon an enterprising idea: why not use the Shay for ice skating?

Ironically, it happened on 2 March 1963 when – as the Manchester Guardian booklet “The Long Winter 1962-63” reports – most of the country was finally melting:

The ordeal brought a few pence, but it did Halifax no good – they scraped just 30 points all season and were relegated to the fourth division, along with Carlisle, Brighton and Bradford Park Avenue.

“Was any club ever cruel enough to give their manager the boot on Christmas Day?” surprised Simon Briggs in 2006.

Heartless as it sounds, club yes that they knew to send their manager to the post on the birthday of Jesus, and they were even brave enough to end the festivities of José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix. “I was nine or 10 years old and my father [Félix] in the job on Christmas Day,” the Chelsea manager recalled, during an interview back in 2004. “He was a manager, the results weren’t good, he missed a game on the 22nd or 23rd of December. On Christmas Day, the phone rang and it was posted in the middle of our lunch.” Mourinho Jr has come close to a festive shot himself – in the post at Chelsea on 19 December 2015, and at Manchester United on 18 December 2018.

Can you help?

“When Rico Lewis made his England debut against North Macedonia, he was the fourth England goalkeeper to be born in Bury, Greater Manchester recently (along with Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Kieran Trippier). Given that the town’s population is only 81,000 (the wider borough has 193,000), this seems like a very impressive record. Are there any other ‘small towns’ that have provided players for specific positions in the England team (or any other national team) more consistently?” the wonders of Michael Barlow.

“I follow Sweden’s top women’s division, OBOS Damallsvenskan, and I couldn’t see the distance between the top and the bottom half of the table this season, when Hammarby won the title,” begins Jonas Jacobson. “Early on it looked like there was a huge gap in class between the top seven teams and the bottom seven, with FC Rosengård (champions in 2022) and eighth place Växjö DFF (newcomer from second place). series) 19 points. So, naturally, I wonder: has there ever been a bigger gap between the top and bottom half of the first division table?”

“Patrick Kisnorbo from Troyes recently struck. During his coaching tenure, his record was W3 D14 L23, a modest 7.5% win record, and resulted in his club being relegated to Ligue 2. Yikes. Barring caretaker managers (I’d say at least 10 games), does he have the title of worst manager in the ‘Big Five’ leagues?” Florian Labrouche’s email.

“Over the weekend in Malta, Brazilian player André Carlos Penha da Costa, who plays for second tier Melita FC, scored his second consecutive four-goal haul for the club (in five days),” writes Jean Pierre Attard. “I was wondering if there is some sort of record for such an achievement? I figure it’s five of the biggest hat tricks in a row.”