Huddersfield Town - Saturday 26th December 2009 (Postponed)

Come on then older readers, and that could be being to generous to some of you if you do remember as far back as we are going here. Stick your hand up if you think footballers have it easy these days as far as the amount of games played over the Christmas period is concerned. I say that because it certainly used to be different in England until the late 1950s and in Scotland up to the mid 1970s when matches were played on Christmas Day.

The last games to have taken place at Football League level on the 25^th of December were in 1959 when Blackburn beat Blackpool 1-0 at home in the old first division and Coventry defeated Wrexham 5-3 in the third tier. While up in Scotland the last round of fixtures came in 1976, although poor weather and a reluctance to play caused a good few postponements, the last time a full set of fixtures was played North of the border being in 1971.

As for Carlisle, well our last game on Christmas Day was at home to Workington in Division Three North in 1957, the Blues and the Reds sharing four goals at Brunton Park to enter the festive spirit. One of United's two club record 8-0 wins actually came on the 25^th of December when we thumped Scunthorpe at home in 1952, Jimmy 'Wham' Whitehouse weighing in with five goals, while Alan Ashman scored 2 and Bobby Harrison got the other. Whitehouse and Harrison then netting in a 2-1 win at the Old Showground in the return fixture just two days later.

That victory, along with the Workington draw, meant Carlisle ended up with a very good record on matches played on Christmas Day, the Blues winning six, drawing eight and losing only two of their 16 games played. United, that 8-0 win aside, also hammering Rochdale 7-2 at Brunton Park in 1954 in a game which Carlisle scored just four of their goals as the 'Dale remarkably managed a hat-trick of own goals. Ian Atkinson (2), Ernie Bond and Tommy Kinloch from the penalty spot netting for the Cumbrians themselves.

When you look at some of the runs of games United have played over a festive period, the 1932-33, 1950-51 and 1955-56 seasons are the worst with five fixtures shovelled in over ten days, although plenty of other years certainly come close to those. One example of the five game campaigns being the 1950-51 campaign which saw Carlisle play on the 23^rd, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, the 30^th and then the 2^nd of January.

Although the Blues did get a return of three wins and two defeats under Bill Shankly from those matches on their way to finishing third in Division Three North and missing out on promotion by two points. Shankly of course going on to manage our opponents today, in Huddersfield Town, for three years after being in charge of their reserve side for twelve months. A club for whom he gave a 16-year old Denis Law his debut on Christmas Eve 1956 in a 2-1 win at Notts County.

Of course over the pond games still take place on Christmas Day in the NBA, although mainly for television purposes to some degree, with five games scheduled at staggered start times, three of them being broadcast on ESPN while the other two are on ABC. Infact if you are a West coast Basketball junkie then yesterday you could have started off watching the Miami Heat at the New York Knicks at 9am Pacific time and gone straight through until around 10pm as the Denver Nuggets at the Portland Trail Blazers tipped off at 7.30pm. What a fun Christmas Day that would have been.

The only day everyone gets off being Christmas Eve in a league where 82 games per club, making 1,230 in total, have to be fit into a 170 day long regular season, basically a fixture every two days. That is small beer though compared to Major League Baseball where an insane 162 matches take place in a season which 'cannot be scheduled over fewer then 178 days, nor more than 183 days, with exceptions made for "International Openers")'. Bet you fancy that eh Mr Kit Man - a game a day for six months.

Over here life is a little bit more peaceful, particularly these days over the festive period, although we couldn't have asked for much more from the three games we now have scheduled. Huddersfield today should be a (avoid Christmas cracker line) good game with a healthy amount of away fans, followed by a nice short trip to Tranmere on Monday. Then of course it is Everton away in the FA Cup, kindly to be played on the 2^nd of January to give us plenty of time to sleep off that New Year's Eve hangover.