TOP OF THE LEAGUE AT CHRISTMAS
This is a list of the teams that were top of the league at Christmas each season, and if they were champions at the end of the season.
Records | Divisions 1 and 2 | Divisions 3 and 4 | Forest On Top | When the Top Spot Changed on Christmas Day!
Times The Top Spot Changed Hands
There have been 150 seasons of Christmas top spots and the top team is the one who's on top on Christmas Day. But, from 1889 until 1965, League games were actually played on Christmas Day, meaning do I select the team on top in the morning or at the end of the day? Well for the most, they're the same, but that means some exceptions to the rule! Read On!
The first Christmas Day game was in the second League season of 1889-90, and there was just the one match. Top place Preston North End beat Aston Villa 3-1 to stay on top of the First Division on their way to a second League title. Nick Ross scored a hat-trick for Preston in front of a crowd of 9,000.
That started a League tradition of Christmas Day games with fairly full schedules being played from the 1900's right up 1957 when the full fixture list was abruptly stopped. A handful of games were played in 1958 and 159 and then a single game was played in 1965 when Blackpool hosted Blackburn Rovers in a bottom-half of the table clash and emerged 4-2 victors.
That ended the tradition of games on December 25th after a total of 1,243 games.
So how was the top of the table affected by these games? Good question (and the one I started with a while ago). Well, there were a total of 23 teams that opened a present on Christmas afternoon and found a lump of coal as they slipped off the top spot. Here they are: