How Boxing Day became important in the sporting calendar

In football, the English Premier League (EPL) this season does not boast a marquee match, but there will be no shortage of festive fervour. Here is a brief history of what is perhaps the most anticipated and sacred date in the sporting calendar.

Origins of Boxing Day

There are several legends and myths regarding the origins of Boxing Day.

One popular belief is that in Victorian England, the church collected money from churchgoers in the form of a collection throughout the year, opened it on Christmas, and then handed it over to the poor the next day in “boxes”.

Another story pertains to how servants working for the upper classes on Christmas, would return home to their families the day after. Their masters would notably send them home with gift “boxes”. According to historian Neil Armstrong, Boxing Day dates back to the 17th century when the employers would tip their employees with coins in a “box”.

December 26 became a day of frolic in 1871 when it was classed as a bank holiday in England. This was also the time when a more organised sporting calendar was coming into being. “For the working class, whose residences were often uncomfortable, overcrowded and unappealing, a rare day free from work was a reason to take to the streets, not relax at home,” Martin Johnes wrote in Christmas and the British: A Modern History (2016).

It is in this context that Boxing Day rose to prominence in the sporting calendar, first with football, the sport of the working classes.

Boxing Day in football

The first recorded Boxing Day game, between Sheffield FC and Hallam FC, was held in 1860. When the Football League was formed in 1888 — which would become the First Division in 1892 when a Second Division was added, and the Premier League in 1992 — the practice continued and was made official.

Matches were scheduled on both December 25 and 26 till the 1950s, with the Football Association and clubs eager to squeeze in as many games as possible in the festive week to rake in profit. Games on Christmas Day were eventually scrapped, with players insisting on spending Christmas with their families — the last match on Christmas Day happened in 1965.

But Boxing Day games endured, courtesy largely to the blockbuster sequence of games on the date in 1963, when a staggering 66 goals were scored across 10 matches. In the Premier League era, Boxing Day games have been marketed aggressively — so much so that when the 2022 World Cup was being chalked, the FA insisted on it not overlapping with Boxing Day. In fact, the EPL is known to have bypassed the randomly decided fixture schedule so that high-profile derby games could be held on Boxing Day.

While other European football associations, like the one in Italy, have tried to ape the English model, Boxing Day fixtures have failed to catch on elsewhere.

Boxing Day in cricket

Barring a few exceptions, from 1865 to the 1970s, the annual Shield fixture between Victoria and New South Wales, the two powerhouses of Australian cricket, began on Boxing Day at the MCG. At the Test match level, however, the ritual is a more recent one.

It was not until Kerry Packer’s Channel Nine acquired the rights of hosting cricket games in Australia in 1979 that the Boxing Day Test at the MCG was pinned permanently onto the sport’s itinerary. Prior to 1980, Australia hosted only four Boxing Day Tests, and that too in different venues — the first Test to begin on Boxing Day at the MCG was in 1968/69.

But the Test between Australia and West Indies beheld a then record turnout (85,596 people), and Packer wasted no time to rake the optimal moolah out of it. “In terms of getting a crowd, if you’re a sporting administrator, not to hold an event on that day is just a waste,” he famously said. The business-savvy Packer might have taken a cue from the salience of Thanksgiving Day (in November) in American football.

The Boxing Day Test at the MCG has been a constant fixture in the cricketing calendar since 1995 — the infamous Test in which Muttiah Muralitharan was “called” by umpire Darrell Hair for bowling with an illegal action). But in 15 preceding years, the scheduling was more flexible. The 1994 Ashes Test, in which Shane Warne took his famous hat-trick, actually began on Christmas Eve. In fact, in 1989, MCG ended up hosting a Boxing Day ODI.

During this period, there were several attempts from other Australian state boards to take the Boxing Day fixture out of the MCG. Eventually Victoria’s cricket association registered the name, and all the intellectual property around it.

Although Boxing Day is very much a British tradition, there is no fixed cricketing event scheduled on the day in England because it is nearly impossible to play the sport during the dark, damp, and cold English winter.