Some may not know this, but there used to be a full programme of football played on Christmas Day, but we never played at the Dell on this day, read on to find out why.

Football on Christmas Day was not a tradition dating back to the beginning of football, in our early days in the Southern League although Boxing Day fixtures took place Christmas Day was still left clear.

That all changed in 1902/03 season though, when in our first ever match on the 25th we travelled to London to take on West Ham United winning 2-1 and a day later losing to Spurs at the Dell 1-0.

From then on the Christmas Dinner was forsaken and Saints either played at home or hit the road, a trip to West ham was quite common back then.

1913/14 saw our first ever Christmas Day game against rivals Portsmouth, the trip to Fratton Park must have been a strange day with christianity yet to reach PO postcodes and locals wondering what all this goodwill to all men was all about, but they had the last laugh winning 2-0, a day later though and they came to us for Boxing Day and we despatched them 4-3.

A year later and it was the same venue and as England played Germany at football during the unofficial truce on the Somme we beat Pompey 1-0 at Fratton and repeated the same score of a year earlier at the Dell on Boxing Day.

1920/21 saw the Southern League teams join the Football league and the usual routine from then on was to play a team home and away over the two days, in that season we went to Luton on Xmas day and drew 1-1 and repeated the score a day later at the Dell with almost 20,000 in attendance

The fixure list compilers were often thoughtless though, in 1922/23 we met Hull City away on Christmas day and then again at the Dell on Boxing Day and todays footballers complain about playing over Christmas. Back then most teams travelled to long games by train and it was not uncommon for both teams to travel together for the return fixture on Boxing Day, trains did run on Xmas day back then, but it must have been a hell of a trek to and from places like Hull and Chesterfield .

The post war years were boom time for football and when football resumed in 1946/47 we met Barnsley away on Xmas Day and drew 4-4 before doing it all again the next day 1-1 at the Dell.

1953/54 saw the Xmas double header be against Bournemouth 11,900 at Dean Court on Xmas Day seeing the home side win 3-1 in an 11am kick off whilst the next day we got revenge winning 2-1 at the Dell in front of 18,493 .

So why despite all these Christmas Day fixtures did we never play at the Dell ? was this just a quirky coincidence or where there more sinister forces at work.

The anser is quite simple, right next to the Dell was St mark's Church and the Club had an agreement with the Church that it would not play matches on religious days, this meant that we never played a home game on the 25th December at the Dell and that Good Friday games were also out, although this changed in the 1970's.

So presumably for all these long haul trips over the festivities Saints would travel up on Christmas Eve, often for an 11am kick off or similar, play the game and then jump on the train home, arriving back in Southampton sometime in the evening of Xmas day (If it had been a later kick off back home later still) and then get up and play another 90 minutes on Boxing Day.

No luxury coaches or flying up back then, no I pods/pads to entertain yourself and often you would have to wait around on cold stations to change trains and today's footballers think they have it hard.

Photo: Action Images

ThereIn76 added 11:31 - Dec 23 What a great piece Nick, thanks for posting! I have a programme from the 74-75 season that contains an explanation that Saints' home fixture on Good Friday would kick off at 3.30pm because of the requirements of St Marks. But in subsequent season the GF match would kick off in the morning.
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stmichael added 13:37 - Dec 23 Remember a 4-4 draw at Tottenham on Boxing day and a high scoring draw at home to Chelsea also on boxing day. And a stinking 0-0 draw at Molyneaux when we kept Andy gray and John Richards at bay.
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ThereIn76 added 16:57 - Dec 23 I too remember the match at Spurs, we were 0-2 down but got it back to 2-2 by half time, you could have heard a pin drop during half time when they introduced Warren Mitchell to the crowd (he predicted that Spurs would win 9-7), then we went 2-4 down but Steve Moran scored two goals in the final seven minutes. Looking forward to going to Dellhurst Park this year.
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