Top Flight Boxing Day Football Feast No Longer a Given Treat

A festive tradition dating back more than 100 years...

Since as far back as 1888, when the Football League was first formed, Christmas Day (25th December) and Boxing Day (26th December) have featured on the annual football fixture list. You might reasonably ask, why? Should this not be a time for people to spend with family and friends, to rest, put their feet up, wrap up in front of a warm fire, and eat until your heart is content?

To understand this tradition, we have to go back to the late nineteenth century when public holidays were rare, and there was nothing like the range of entertainment available today. There was no television, no electronic devices, and no on-demand distractions. As a result, people made a conscious effort to visit family and friends, take part in outdoor activities, visit exhibitions or attend sporting events, from football to horse racing, regardless of the weather.
Christmas was a time to be jolly, social, and generous.

The idea of charity and “giving” has long been closely associated with Boxing Day, celebrations. In Great Britain it is traditionally linked to St Stephen’s Day, which is also observed in Ireland, Catalonia, and many Commonwealth countries. On this day, a religious feast was enjoyed, and “boxes” were filled with gifts, food, tools, and other unwanted items from wealthy households. These were distributed to servants, tradespeople, and the poor as an act of goodwill.
While Christmas Day itself was largely enjoyed by the wealthy, many others were still at work, labouring and unable to take part in the festivities. For them, Boxing Day offered the first real opportunity to celebrate, to gather with family and friends, and to enjoy leisure pursuits such as attending football matches. It was within this social and cultural context that football became firmly embedded in the Christmas calendar, a tradition that has endured for well over a century.

Up until the final Christmas Day top flight football match in 1957, “double-header blockbuster” fixtures were a common feature of the football calendar. Matches were played on Christmas Day and then again on Boxing Day, with teams more often than not facing the same opponent home and away. This arrangement ensured equal travel distances for both sides. At the time, trains and buses ran frequently on public holidays, so fans and players alike would pack up and travel for the away fixture. Boxing Day matches, in particular, remained a fixed and much-anticipated date in the football diary.

One of the major attractions for clubs staging Boxing Day fixtures was the increased likelihood of larger-than-usual gate receipts. Matches on December 26th were often treated as family days out, social gatherings, and festive occasions rather than routine league games. Clubs would arrange extra festive activities to boost the atmosphere and generate greater income.

Today, Boxing Day remains a time to visit family and friends and to attend sporting events, but it now competes with a wide range of other activities. Shoppers flock to the traditional Boxing Day sales, others head to the theatre, and many choose to stay at home enjoying digital, interactive, and on-demand entertainment.

These twentieth and twenty-first-century developments, particularly the rise of digital and interactive services have contributed to a gradual decline in the prominence of top-flight Boxing Day football.
What was once a full festive programme has been steadily diluted, and in 2025 this trend is clear: just one Premier League match is scheduled for Boxing Day itself, Manchester United v Newcastle United with the remaining nine fixtures from the gameweek spread across the following two days (Saturday 27th December and Sunday 28th December).

How has this happened?

Earlier this year in October, when Premier League organisers released the planned fixture dates and kick-off times for December's Christmas period, they stated "The Premier League would like to acknowledge the circumstances that have led to a reduced number of matches on Boxing Day this season impacting an important tradition in English football. There are now several challenges to Premier League fixture scheduling rooted in the expansion of European club competitions. This ultimately left the Premier League as a 33-weekend competition, fewer than previous seasons, despite being a 380-match competition since 1995.
“With fewer weekends to work with, the League is bound by how the calendar falls. The League can give an assurance that next season there will be more Premier League matches on Boxing Day, as the date falls on a Saturday.”

Since the formation of the Premier League in 1992 and the introduction of modern broadcasting rights, broadcasters have increasingly influenced when matches are scheduled. This has helped generate high television audiences both domestically and internationally, while also significantly increasing revenue for the league and its broadcast partners.
Although last season (2024/25) there were eight top-flight Boxing Day fixtures, over the past decade Boxing Day matches have often been spread across multiple kick-off times and in some cases across different days.

Over the years there have been increasing calls for a restructured Christmas fixture period, with some advocating for the introduction of a mid-winter break similar to those adopted by many European leagues. Player welfare has also become a major topic of debate, as fixture congestion, limited recovery time, squad rotation, and travel logistics can all have a direct impact on performance and results. During the 1960s and 1970s, public transport services were severely reduced on Boxing Day and were halted completely by 1980. While clubs could rely on coaches to transport players and staff, many supporters were left dependent on car-sharing or organised coach travel to attend matches especially when fixtures were held outside their local area or were difficult to access.

The growth of interactive entertainment and changing viewing habits has contributed to a gradual decline in matchday attendances, though not to a significant extent, as the Premier League remains one of the most successfully marketed and best-supported sporting brands in the world.
On the flip side, outside of the Premier League there will still be a full programme of English league football fixtures on Boxing Day, much to the delight of many lower-league and non-league clubs. Jon Couch, executive editor of The Non-League Paper, confirmed this in a recent article for The Guardian, stating: “Boxing Day is already probably the biggest day of the non-league calendar. It’s the day that non-league clubs look to first when the fixtures come out, because a home Boxing Day game is huge, both commercially and in terms of bringing the community together.”

Ultimately, for supporters of Premier League clubs particularly those not involved in Boxing Day fixtures they are more than welcome to visit a local non-league side or their second-favourite league club. In doing so, fans can still enjoy a more traditional UK Boxing Day experience, rooted in generosity, community spirit, and the shared pleasure of watching live football.