{"id":369443,"date":"2025-12-24T19:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T19:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T19:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T19:34:14","slug":"how-french-clubs-helped-establish-englands-culture-of-festive-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/369443\/","title":{"rendered":"How French clubs helped establish England\u2019s culture of festive sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is that time when the football results of Boxing Day 1963 make their annual appearance. They have entered British sporting lore: ten First Division games that yielded 66 goals, with scorelines of 10-1, 8-2, 4-4 and a pair of 3-3 draws.<\/p>\n

The rugby programme on Boxing Day is not what it was, but vestiges of tradition endure: one Gallagher Prem fixture, two Welsh derbies in the United Rugby Championship, three games in the English Champ. There will be local clashes to savour as well, such as Pontypridd at home to Beddau, and Neath welcoming Bonymaen to the Gnoll.<\/p>\n

\"Rory<\/p>\n

The Tigers used to take on the Barbarians in an annual match over the festive period<\/p>\n

ROSS KINNAIRD\/ALLSPORT<\/p>\n

In France, Boxing Day does not hold the same sway over sport. Media outlets publish articles explaining the \u201cAnglo-Saxon\u201d tradition of December 26. Football\u2019s Ligue 1 is observing its winter break, with fixtures returning on January 2. In rugby, Pro D2 is enjoying a two-week break (back on January 8), and Nationale three weeks (back on January 9). Players in the Top 14 enjoy no such luxuries. There is a full round on December 27-28, with staggered kick-off times so that none of the seven games overlap.<\/p>\n

It was only in 2009 that the Top 14 launched a \u201cJour des bo\u00eetes\u201d (Boxing Day) programme. Why the speech marks? Well, the Boxing Day games took place on December 30. A full programme of fixtures on Wednesday, then another on Sunday, January 3.<\/p>\n

Prior to that, \u201cBetwixtmas\u201d was a time of rest for the top division: in the 2008-09 season, for example, there were no Top 14 fixtures between December 20 and January 2. Despite murmurings of strike action in previous years, the league has encroached on the festive season. There was even a Parisian derby on Christmas Eve in 2022. It is not that France has never countenanced rugby on Christmas or Boxing Day, just that it is not as romantic. <\/p>\n

\"Racing92's<\/p>\n

Racing took on Stade Francais on Christmas Eve in 2022 but festive sport in France does not hold the same sway as it does in England<\/p>\n

THOMAS SAMSON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The advent of leagues in an increasingly professional sport put an end to some of the classic rugby fixtures in the UK. Watsonians would travel from Edinburgh to Wales and were Newport\u2019s traditional post-Christmas opposition \u2014 usually on Boxing Day \u2014 between 1896 and 1980, after a meeting with Swansea on Christmas Day. Another classic 20th century fixture was Barbarians against Leicester Tigers at Welford Road on December 26. There were others: Neath versus London Welsh, Llanelli against University Athletics Union, and more. <\/p>\n

Though the French may not be so wistful for this tradition, Anglo-French tours were part of the fabric during the early 20th century as the codes of football developed. December 1897 marked the first game of soccer at Parc des Princes, where English Ramblers \u2014 12 months on from their first Yuletide series in Paris \u2014 beat Club Fran\u00e7ais 3-1. Cold temperatures didn\u2019t help rouse interest and the crowd was reported to have been about 500 spectators. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Brighton and Stade Francais rugby union teams before their match at Parc de St Cloud in Paris on December 20, 1903<\/p>\n

SPORT AND GENERAL<\/p>\n

The Parisian theme continued and the team most associated with Anglo-French rugby was Racing Club de France. They hosted Park House RFC in 1901, and in 1903 they made the trip to England, losing 10-0 to Northampton on Boxing Day (in front of the largest crowd of the season, according to press reports) and 44-0 to Bedford two days later. <\/p>\n

In 1906 the city\u2019s other great club, Stade Fran\u00e7ais, beat West Hartlepool on Christmas Day and spent Boxing Day watching their opposition meet Hartlepool Rovers. Though they may have ceded profile to the Stade Fran\u00e7ais hockey team \u2014 the Daily Mirror carried three photographs of a 12-1 defeat by Hampstead in their December 27 edition \u2014 the tourists were entertained at a smoking concert at the banquet hall of the Grand Hotel, at which \u201cladies were permitted to be present, and a few attended in the balcony\u201d, according to the local press. The Entente Cordiale, agreed in 1904, was alive and well. <\/p>\n

In 1907, the French repaid the favour of hospitality to Hythe, who beat La Rochelle on Christmas Day, and Stade Bordelais hosted Liverpool. Racing returned in 1908 and lost heavily to Gloucestershire on Christmas Eve, Bristol on Christmas Day and Pontypool on Boxing Day, before the customary smoking concert at the Grand Hotel. Franklyn Welford reported in the Sporting Life that Toulouse would come over to face Leicester, Northampton and Coventry in December 1914, but war intervened. <\/p>\n

In the 1920s, Racing became annual arrivals in the UK and established a popular Boxing Day encounter with Blackheath, around fixtures against Newport and Leicester, and on occasion Northampton. Jim Swanton, the great cricket and rugby writer, recalled attending the traditional fixture at Rectory Field, the very ground where, as an 18-year-old, he nervously interviewed Frank Woolley for his first published work. <\/p>\n

France\u2019s exile from the Five Nations in 1931 put a stop to this clash \u2014 Blackheath faced a team from Hanover that Boxing Day instead \u2014 but Racing resumed tours in 1945, against Newport on Christmas Eve and a combined Richmond-Blackheath XV on Boxing Day, and added Waterloo and Old Belvedere in Dublin to their opposition. There was an iteration of the Racing fixture in 1949 but the following year Blackheath hosted Combined Edinburgh Academical and Wanderers on Boxing Day. <\/p>\n

As for rugby league, the touring Kiwis and Kangaroos had occasional games in France at this time of year: in 1951 New Zealand faced France in Paris on December 23 and Bordeaux a week later, with two tour games in between and two more on New Year\u2019s Eve and New Year\u2019s Day. The following winter, Australia beat Racing Club Albi on Christmas Day and had a Test against France at Parc des Princes on December 27. <\/p>\n

Rugby league\u2019s switch to summer did away with a staple of the northern game. No longer would St Helens win on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and December 27, as they did in 1958, nor has there been a Hull derby on Christmas Day since 1968, yet memories of that age linger through this year\u2019s Boxing Day friendlies: Leeds Rhinos hosting Wakefield Trinity at 11.30am, and the Heavy Woollen Derby between Batley Bulldogs and Dewsbury Rams at noon.<\/p>\n

Whether in person, or on TV hundreds of miles from France, enjoy this week\u2019s sport. Nadolig llawen, bon match, and Merry Christmas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is that time when the football results of Boxing Day 1963 make their annual appearance. They have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-369443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}