Cardiff City and Christmas Day football.

[the other bob wilson]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

[bobh]

Play a team on Christmas day with the return fixture on Boxing day.

Those were the days, eh?

Wonder how the "super-fit" athletes of football these days would cope with that?

[Vimana.]

Wow. I didnt know about the return fixture. Gee wiz ..

Also amazing to think now that in Scotland Christmas Day football carried on until the mid 70's!

[Enoch Mort]

An excellent and informative article as ever. Thanks very much for yet another year of excellent match reports, comment on all things Cardiff City, keeping us up to date on the Academy and other teams and also your challenging quizzes.

Merry Christmas Paul.

[Isaac Hunt]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

Weren't home on Christmas day very often were we? And long trips to Newcastle, Sheffield, Mansfield and Southend must have been horrendous in those days. Who worked the fixtures out back then? No computer, so it must have been some twat in the league HQ that sat down and worked them out. He didn't do us any favours.

[Sloop_Jon_Bee]

An excellent and informative article as ever. Thanks very much for yet another year of excellent match reports, comment on all things Cardiff City, keeping us up to date on the Academy and other teams and also your challenging quizzes.

Merry Christmas Paul.

Second this. Great read Paul. There were also occasions when city would play Boxing day and the day after in these years especially so for a few seasons after 1954. One that caught my eye from historical data was the 1949 season to Plymouth on boxing day drew 0-0 near 29k attendance and home next day with a city win and near 33k. Chealsea in 55/56 quite impressive too. Travel couldn't have been that quick back then. Cheers for the hard work with the quiz' and posts Paul. Keep them coming mate. Merry Christmas to you.
Spedger

[Former Labour leader]

Brilliant piece, Bob.
Thankyou and a very Merry Xmas.

[the other bob wilson]

Thanks to you all for your replies. I'm really pleased to say that someone who was at that West Brom match sixty two years ago tomorrow has replied in the Feedback section of the blog.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

Thanks, a very interesting article. I think until the late 1920's, the fixtures were arranged so that clubs played each other on consecutive Saturday's [or midweek].
On a similar vein [though I may be pre-empting another article], City's worst ever defeat was on New Years Day in 1925, I think 11-2 at Sheff. Utd. in 1926. Our New Years Day defeat at home to Maidstone [0-5], in 1992 was down to the same 24 hour virus that decimated the City side 65 years earlier...