“Listen, for a Premier League footballer, every day is Christmas Day.”
Robbie Savage once wrote in his column for the BBC that this would be Leicester City manager Martin O’Neill’s response if he saw any of his players less than enthusiastic about coming in to train on Christmas Day ahead of a Boxing Day fixture.
There might only be one Premier League match on December 26 this year, which may afford some top-flight players a day off, but there is a whole programme of games in the Football League.
While those around them are celebrating and indulging in festive food and drink, professional footballers have to maintain the usual sky-high levels of commitment to training and nutrition.
It may be the season to be merry, but not for professional footballers…
“From a young age, we were conditioned to accept we were training on Christmas Day,” former Chelsea, Benfica and West Ham United midfielder Scott Minto tells The Athletic, casting his mind back to his formative years as a youngster at Charlton Athletic.
“I quite liked it. There would be no traffic on the roads for a start. We would probably do a light session because we all wanted to go home, perhaps a five-a-side or an 11-v-11 training game.
“I felt conditioned quite early that this is an exciting time of the year and actually you’re playing a part of it.”
Although the routines are the same, there was something different about training on Christmas morning.
Manchester United fans will hope their team is in good shape for a Boxing Day clash with Newcastle (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
“I enjoyed going training on Christmas Day,” recalls former Leicester City captain Steve Walsh. “We would train for an hour or so and then go home for our Christmas lunch, and then meet the next day for our pre-match meal before a home game.
“If it was an away game, we would travel late afternoon and then spend Christmas night before the game in a hotel, away from our families while people were having parties downstairs, but it was just what we did.”
For Walsh’s defensive partner at Leicester, Gerry Taggart, Christmas wasn’t different from any other time of year.
“Christmas Day was pretty much a nonentity for me, personally,” he says. “It was just restructuring your day, just trying to treat Christmas Day like any other day in the lead up to the game and trying to block out the noise surrounding Christmas. It wasn’t a great time for us, but you got used to it.
“The worst part was if you had an away game on Boxing Day that required an overnight stay. I remember when I was playing for Barnsley, we had a Boxing Day game at Plymouth Argyle (250 miles away). We spent a few hours with our families and then set off around 5pm, and we didn’t get to the hotel until 10pm, which wasn’t great preparation for a game.”
Generally, the fixture computer will try to give teams a more local opponent over the Christmas period. “I don’t know how that fixture came about,” says Taggart.
The temptation to overindulge may have been strong for players, but it was a question of maintaining their professionalism to avoid jeopardising their performances on the pitch.
“There may have been a few that may have overindulged, but it would have shown once the game kicked off,” says Taggart.
When Sir Alex Ferguson was manager of Aberdeen, none of his players would dare to take liberties during Christmas dinner, says former defender Alex McLeish.
“He would definitely give the players advanced warnings,” McLeish says. “We had a rule with him anyway. He banned everybody from drinking three days before a game, so there was no chance of anyone overindulging.
“You would suffer the wrath of Sir Alex and hell hath no fury like a badly scorned Sir Alex. If there was anybody testing it, they were quickly out the door.”
Sir Alex Ferguson would not have accepted his players overindulging (Mike Egerton/Getty Images)
British football certainly had a drinking culture in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, but the arrival of foreign players — and, in particular, managers — changed all that.
“Towards the end of my career, I would have a glass of wine with my Christmas dinner,” Minto says. “Even during the season, if I fancied a glass of wine with my dinner the night before, I would. I played in the mid-90s with the likes of Gianluca Vialli, Ruud Gullit and Gianfranco Zola, and I’m pretty sure I saw Luca have a glass of wine in a hotel the night before a game.
“If a glass of wine or a mince pie makes you feel happy and comfortable, and psychologically ready for a game, then I personally don’t see a problem with it.”
As for the Christmas meal itself, lean turkey and vegetables are a diet many of the players would be encouraged to eat anyway by club nutritionists, who started to become common in the 1990s.
It was the sugary desserts that were off the menu, but above all, it was an issue of quantity rather than quality.
“I used to get up in the morning and open the presents with the kids, then jump in my car to go training, come back, and then pick at my dinner,” says Steve Howard, who played for 18 years for seven clubs, including Derby County and Luton Town.
“You couldn’t stuff your face, even though you really wanted to. The Champagne would be flowing, but you’d be thinking, ‘I can’t even have that!’
“I was always wary about what I ate because I didn’t want it to affect me in the game the next day.”
But for Taggart, it was about preparation.
“I would make sure that my diet in the lead up to Christmas Day was slightly better, so if I was having a bit more than usual for Christmas dinner, I knew that I was in front already,” he says.
Once the playing days are over, the regime can relax, but even in managerial terms, the Christmas sacrifices continue.
“As a manager, you can join the family in the eating sense, but it was only a couple of glasses and that was it,” says McLeish, who managed a host of clubs including Rangers, Birmingham City and Aston Villa, as well as the Scotland national team.
“There was never any overindulgence on the day before the match, even as a manager.
“I remember one year at Birmingham, we had a game at Everton and the weather was terrible. We had our Christmas dinner, with me being good, only a couple of glasses of wine, and then travelled up, only for the game to be postponed the next day. That was annoying.”
A snow-struck Goodison Park (Barrington Coomes/Getty Images)
That level of abstinence wasn’t the same for all coaching staff once the shackles of playing were off.
“It was really boring for us players in the hotels before an away Boxing Day game,” says Howard. “We used to have our meal and then go to our rooms to watch some crappy Christmas Day television while the staff were getting pie-eyed downstairs.
“I remember a few managers getting up at 9am the next day and looking like they had enjoyed themselves.”
Howard admits that when he hung up his boots, the first Boxing Day was a strange experience.
“It was the first Christmas Day when I wasn’t playing and my wife asked whether I wanted a glass of wine,” he says. “I was like, ‘No, no’, and then I realised I wasn’t playing the next day, so I had the whole bottle.
“I enjoyed the Boxing Day fixtures, when loads of friends and family would come to watch, but now I have a little girl who is six years old and I am really enjoying being home with her and seeing family and friends on Christmas Day.”
While for many, Christmas is a time to relax and celebrate, for professional players, that window came in the middle of the year, at the end of the season.
“Christmas Day for footballers is like any other day,” Howard says. “We are going to work.”